Vacuum arc recovery phenomena

Rich, J. A.; Farrall, G. A.

doi:10.1109/proc.1964.3365

Cited by 95 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…After the burning of the high-current vacuum arc, which is, in fact, a metal vapor arc in a vacuum environment, the inter-contact region of the VCB is filled with a metal vapor and a residual plasma 16,17 at current zero. At this moment, a rapidly increasing TRV generated by an external circuit is imposed across the contacts with reversed polarity.…”

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

One-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation on the influence of electron and ion temperature on the sheath expansion process in the post-arc stage of vacuum circuit breaker

Shi

Jia

et al. 2015

Physics of Plasmas

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The inter-contact region of vacuum circuit breakers is filled with residual plasma at the moment when the current is zero after the burning of metal vapor arc. The residual plasma forms an ion sheath in front of the post-arc cathode. The sheath then expands towards the post-arc anode under the influence of a transient recovery voltage. In this study, a one-dimensional particle-in-cell model is developed to investigate the post-arc sheath expansion. The influence of ion and electron temperatures on the decrease in local plasma density at the post-arc cathode side and post-arc anode side is discussed. When the decay in the local plasma density develops from the cathode and anode sides into the high-density region and merges, the overall plasma density in the inter-contact region begins to decrease. Meanwhile, the ion sheath begins to expand faster. Furthermore, the theory of ion rarefaction wave only explains quantitatively the decrease in the overall plasma density at relatively low ion temperatures. With the increase of ion temperature to certain extent, another possible reason for the decrease in the overall plasma density is proposed and results from the more active thermal diffusion of plasma. V C 2015 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx.

show abstract

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

One-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation on the influence of electron and ion temperature on the sheath expansion process in the post-arc stage of vacuum circuit breaker

Shi

Jia

et al. 2015

Physics of Plasmas

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The temperature on the contact surfaces varies between 1800 and 2100 K for circuit breakers considered in this study. 3,4 As the temperature increases, the evaporation flux increases and so does the neutral atom density between the two electrodes. The estimation of the evaporation flux is discussed in Sec.…”

Section: The Evaporation-condensation Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sheath expansion and plasma dynamics in the presence of electrode evaporation: Application to a vacuum circuit breaker

Sarrailh

Garrigues

Hagelaar

et al. 2009

Journal of Applied Physics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During the postarc dielectric recovery phase in a vacuum circuit breaker, a cathode sheath forms and expels the plasma from the electrode gap. The success or failure of current breaking depends on how efficiently the plasma is expelled from the electrode gap. The sheath expansion in the postarc phase can be compared to sheath expansion in plasma immersion ion implantation except that collisions between charged particles and atoms generated by electrode evaporation may become important in a vacuum circuit breaker. In this paper, we show that electrode evaporation plays a significant role in the dynamics of the sheath expansion in this context not only because charged particle transport is no longer collisionless but also because the neutral flow due to evaporation and temperature gradients may push the plasma toward one of the electrodes. Using a hybrid model of the nonequilibrium postarc plasma and cathode sheath coupled with a direct simulation Monte Carlo method to describe collisions between heavy species, we present a parametric study of the sheath and plasma dynamics and of the time needed for the sheath to expel the plasma from the gap for different values of plasma density and electrode temperatures at the beginning of the postarc phase. This work constitutes a preliminary step toward understanding and quantifying the risk of current breaking failure of a vacuum arc.

show abstract

“…1). After a baking period of 16 h at 3500C, Manuscript received July 10, 1986; revised April 18, 1987 1. Vacuum interrupter with flat Cu contacts and spherical shield, which is at floating potential during the arc discharge, but at the anode's potential during high-voltage application.…”

Section: Experimental Arrangementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The observed reduction of the dielectric strength during recovery has been attributed to the presence of metal vapor [1], [2] or plasma [3], [4], to surface irregularities, and to metal droplets [5]. However, there exists no experimental evidence of the relative importance of these effects [6].…”

Section: Introduction R Ecovery Of Vacuum Interrupters After High-mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dielectric Recovery of Vacuum Arcs after Strong Anode Spot Activity

Dullni

Schade

Gellert

1987

IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recovery of dielectric strength and post-arc currents after diffuse and constricted vacuum arcs were measured for filat OFHC-Cu contacts (D = 25 mm, d = 7.5 mm) enclosed in a bakable UHV chamber. The arc current pulse had a trapezoidal shape of 5.5-ms duration with peak values up to 11 kA. In comparison with the fast recovery of diffuse arcs, the recovery of constricted arcs with gross melting is considerably retarded. Post-arc currents are simulated using the Andrews-Varey model extended to include the effects of secondary electron emission due to ion bombardment of the cathode and loss of the plasma due to thermal motion. The flow of charge carriers to the anode and the shield, which is at the anode's potential, are registered separately. The amount and decay of the residual plasma is evaluated from the measurements of post-arc current. The decay times of a few tens of a microsecond give evidence of ions with energies below 1 eV. The origin and effect of slow ions on recovery is discussed. I. INTRODUCTION R ECOVERY of vacuum interrupters after high-fault currents determines their interruption capability in commercial networks. The observed reduction of the dielectric strength during recovery has been attributed to the presence of metal vapor [1], [2] or plasma [3], [4], to surface irregularities, and to metal droplets [5]. However, there exists no experimental evidence of the relative importance of these effects [6].This paper aims to investigate the behavior of residual plasma after the extinction of arc currents of varying amplitudes and to determine its influence on the recovery of the dielectric strength. The trapezoidal pulse of current chosen ensured stationary conditions within the plasma during the current plateau. For peak values higher than 3 kA, the arc was constricted and melting of the contacts occurred. The rate of decline was chosen to correspond to sinusoidal currents of up to 40-kA peak. For the sake of high flexibility, the probing high-voltage pulse was delivered from a separate circuit. Rise time and peak values were greater than usual, in order to go beyond the limit of successful current-interruption and induce reignition. The same method had been applied before by Farrall [6].

show abstract

Vacuum arc recovery phenomena

Cited by 95 publications

References 20 publications

One-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation on the influence of electron and ion temperature on the sheath expansion process in the post-arc stage of vacuum circuit breaker

One-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation on the influence of electron and ion temperature on the sheath expansion process in the post-arc stage of vacuum circuit breaker

Sheath expansion and plasma dynamics in the presence of electrode evaporation: Application to a vacuum circuit breaker

Dielectric Recovery of Vacuum Arcs after Strong Anode Spot Activity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About