Investigation into limitation of electric arc energy in LV switch installed in AC circuit through application of time-controlled contact separation

Abstract

Summary This paper presents results from performed research on a mitigation of an electric arc in a LV switch through an application of a time‐controlled separation of contacts of the tested switch. The research was performed in an AC circuit composed with a voltage source, a pure inductive load, and the tested switch. The aim of performed activities was to determine electric arc energies as well as arcing times in the situation, when the contacts of the operated switch installed in the tested circuit were separated at different instants of the interrupted current. For this purpose, a microcontroller system with a special algorithm implemented was developed. To perform the research, the following angles of the current period were selected to perform the measurements: 35, 90, 145°, and the time just before 0°. To highlight an importance of the supply voltage on a character of the electric arc, its voltage‐current characteristics were determined at 2 different voltage levels of the voltage source (12 and 230 V).