Experimental investigation of the prestrike characteristics of a double-break vacuum circuit breaker under DC voltages

Abstract

The prestrike phenomenon in vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) is interesting but complicated. Previous studies mainly focus on the prestrike phenomenon in single-break VCBs. However, experimental work on prestrike characteristics of double-break VCBs cannot be found in literature. This paper aims to experimentally determine the probabilistic characteristics of prestrike gaps in a double-break VCB consisting of two commercial vacuum interrupters (VIs) in series under direct current (DC) voltages. As a benchmark, single-break prestrike gaps were measured by short-circuiting one of the VIs in a double break. The experimental results show that the 50% prestrike gap d50 of each VI in a double break, which is calculated with the complementary Weibull distribution, was significantly reduced by 25% to 72.7% compared with that in a single break. Due to the voltage-sharing effect in the double-break VCB, scatters in prestrike gaps of each VI in a double break was smaller than that in a single break. However, without the sharing-voltage effect, d50 of the low-voltage side in the double break was 65% higher than that of the same VI in the single break, which could be caused by the asynchronous property of mechanical actuators, the difference of the inherent prestrike characteristics of each VI and the unequal voltage-sharing ratio of VIs.