Study on Measuring Method and Experiment of Arc Fault Detection Device

Abstract

Arc fault is one of the main inducement of electric fires. Arc Fault Detection Device (AFDD) can detect arc fault effectively in electric fires. Arc fault detection and unhooking standard of AFDD are the key to practical application. In the paper, an arc fault continuous production system was developed, which could count the arc half wave number. Then, combining with the UL1699 standard, ignition probability curve of cotton and unhooking time of various currents intensity were obtained by experiments. The total energy of combustion arcing could be expressed effectively by area of arc current curve. Experiments proved that electric fires would be misjudged or missed only using arc half wave number as AFDD unhooking basis. A self-developed AFDD was tested . The result showed that total protection time of AFDD was the sum of arc half wave cycling number, arc wave identification time and unhooking mechanical operation time. The unhooking mechanical operation time is longest. The total protection time of AFDD depended on the shortest mechanical operation time.