Pressure and Arc Voltage Measurement in a 252 kV SF_6 Puffer Circuit Breaker

The pressure distribution in an arcing chamber is critically important for the SF6 puffer circuit breaker design. In this paper, the pressure variation of four locations in the nozzle was measured by piezoresistive and fiber optical pressure sensors at two current levels of 10 kA and 50 kA. An arc voltage measurement was also taken. The results demonstrate that using either type of sensor with a connecting tube is able to detect the fast pressure variation in circuit breakers, however the possible distortion and delay to the pressure transient caused by the tube need further study.

Investigation of Vacuum Arc Voltage Characteristics Under Different Axial Magnetic Field Profiles

Characteristics of the arc voltage under different profiles of axial magnetic field were investigated experimentally in a detachable vacuum chamber with five pairs of specially designed electrodes generating both bell-shaped and saddle-shaped magnetic field profile. The arc column and cathode spot images were photographed by a high speed digital camera. The dependence of the arc voltage on arcing evolution is analyzed. It is indicated that the axial magnetic field profile could affect the arc behaviors significantly, and the arc voltage is closely related to the arc light intensity.

Correction factor based double model fuzzy logic control strategy of arc voltage in pulsed MIG welding

According to the feature of arc voltage control in welding steel using pulsed MIG welding, a correction factor based double model fuzzy logic controller (FLC) was developed to realize the arc voltage control by means of arc voltage feedback. When the error of peak arc voltage was great, a coarse adjusting fuzzy logic control rules with correction factor was designed, in the controller, the peak arc voltage was controlled by the wire feeding speed by means of arc voltage feedback. When the error of peak arc voltage was small, a fine adjusting fuzzy logic control rules with correction factor was designed, in this controller, the peak arc voltage was controlled by the background time by means of arc voltage feedback. The FLC was realized in a Look-Up Table (LUT) method. Experiments had been carried out aiming at implementing the control strategy to control the arc length change in welding process. Experimental results show that the controller proposed enables the consistency of arc length and the stability of arc voltage and welding process to be achieved in pulsed MIG welding process.

Feature Extraction and Modeling of Welding Quality Monitoring in Pulsed Gas Touch Argon Welding Based on Arc Voltage Signal

Arc sensing plays a significant role in the control and monitoring of welding quality for aluminum alloy pulsed gas touch argon welding(GTAW). A method for online quality monitoring based on adaptive boosting algorithm is proposed through the analysis of acquired arc voltage signal. Two feature extraction algorithms were developed in time domain and frequency domain respectively to extract six statistic characteristic parameters before removing the pulse interference using the wavelet packet transform(WPT), based on which the Adaboost classification model is successfully established to evaluate and classify the welding quality into two classes and the classified accuracy of the model is as high as 98.81%. The Adaboost algorithm has been verified to be feasible in the online evaluation of welding quality.

Interruption Phenomenon in Intermediate-Frequency Vacuum Arc

In the condition of the 3 mm gap, experiments for 360 Hz intermediate-frequency vacuum arc are carried out in interrupters with the diameters being 41 mm and with the contact materials being CuCr50 and Cu-W-WC alloy respectively. The results indicate that the contacts material is closely related to the breaking capacity of the vacuum interrupters and characteristics of an intermediate-frequency vacuum arc. For contacts with the same diameter, the breaking capacity of CuCr50 is better than that of Cu-W-WC. When the current fails to be interrupted, the arcs overflow the gap and present irregular performances in the first half wave. Consequently a voltage spike appears. More macroscopic metal droplets can be seen in the arc column between CuCr50 contacts because of the lower melting point. It is observed that the droplet emission is much more severe during arc reignition than that in the first half wave. It is much more conspicuous that the high frequency arc voltage noises appear in Cu-W-WC contacts when the vacuum arcs reignite, for higher temperature and stronger electronic emission ability of Cu-W-WC contacts.

Influence of Gap Distance on Vacuum Arc Characteristics of Cup Type AMF Electrode in Vacuum Interrupters

The greenhouse effect of SFe is a great concern today. The development of high voltage vacuum circuit breakers becomes more important. The vacuum circuit breaker has minimum pollution to the environment. The vacuum interrupter is the key part of a vacuum circuit breaker. The interrupting characteristics in vacuum and arc-controlling techniue are the main problems to be solved for a longer gap distance in developing high voltage vacuum interrupters. To understand the vacuum arc characteristics and provide effective technique to control vacuum arc in a long gap distance, the arc mode transition of a cup-type axial magnetic field electrode is observed by a high-speed charge coupled device （CGD） video camera under different gap distances while the arc voltage and arc current are recorded. The controlling ability of the axial magnetic field on vacuum arc obviously decreases when the gap distance is longer than 40 ram. The noise components and mean value of the arc voltage significantly increase. The effective method for controlling the vacuum arc characteristics is provided by long gap distances based on the test results. The test results can be used as a reference to develop high voltage and large capacity vacuum interrupters.

Experimental study on the jet characteristics of a steam plasma torch

Thermal steam plasma jet is promising for applications in environmental industries due to its distinctive characteristics of high enthalpy and high chemical reactivity. However, the performance of the steam plasma torch for its generation is limited by the problems of the large arc voltage fluctuation and serious erosion of the electrodes. In this study, a gas-stabilized steam plasma torch which can operate continuously and stably was designed. Experiments were conducted to reveal the effect of the different working parameters, including the anode diameter, the cooling water temperature, the arc current and the steam flow rate, on its Volt-Ampere characteristics, arc voltage fluctuation, thermal efficiency, jet characteristics and electrodes erosion. Results showed that the use of hot water to cool the electrodes can effectively prevent the condensation of steam on the inner wall of the electrodes, thus significantly reducing the arc voltage fluctuations and electrodes erosion. This is crucial for increasing the working life of the electrodes and ensuring long-term stability of the steam plasma torch. In addition, suitable anode diameter can greatly reduce the arc voltage fluctuation of the steam plasma torch and effectively improve the stability of the steam plasma jet. Furthermore, high arc current can effectively reduce the fluctuations of the arc voltage and increase the length and the volume of the steam plasma jet. Finally, using steam as the plasma forming gas can achieve higher thermal efficiency compared to air. An ideal thermal efficiency can be achieved by properly reducing the arc current and increasing the steam flow rate.

Design and characteristics of a new type laminar plasma torch for materials processing

Laminar plasma jet(LPJ)generated by laminar plasma torch(LPT)has a favorable temperature and velocity distribution.Thus,it is superior to the turbulent plasma jet in material processing.However,most of the reported LPTs usually operate at a relatively low output power with a relatively low arc voltage and thermal efficiency,which limits its capabilities.In this context,this paper attempts to design a new type of high-power LPT with a relatively low arc current and a high thermal efficiency.In the first section,the design principle of the main components is studied and discussed in detail,and a new high-power LPT is proposed.Then,the experimental characteristics of the proposed high-power LPT are examined.Experimental results reveal the following characteristics of the proposed LPT.(1)The max jet length of the proposed LPT reaches at 540 mm.(2)Its mean arc voltage is higher than 290 V when the LPT works with arc currents lower than 200 A.leading to an output power greater than 50 kW.(3)The mean thermal efficiency is higher than 509f.Lastly,the proposed LPT has been applied to spheroidize the aluminum oxide powers.The experiment results for the production of spherical powders show that the proposed LPT hits a good characteristic for material processing.