Research on arc root stagnation when small current is interrupted in self-excited circuit breaker

The self-excited DC air circuit breaker(SE-DCCB)has been widely used in urban rail transit due to its excellent stability.It can realize forward and reverse interruption,but has difficulty interrupting small currents due to the phenomenon of arc root sticking at the entrance of the arc chamber in the splitting process,which is known as arc root stagnation.A coupling model of the self-excited magnetic field and magnetohydrodynamics is established for the SE-DCCB with the traditional structure.The magnetic field,temperature and airflow distribution in the arc chamber are investigated with an interrupting current of 150 A.The simulation results show that the direction and magnitude of the magnetic blowout force are the dominant factors in the arc root stagnation.The local high temperature of the arc chamber due to arc root stagnation increases the obstruction effect of the airflow vortex on the arc root movement,which significantly increases the arc duration time of small current interruption.Based on the research,the structure of the magnetic conductance plate of the actual product is improved,which can improve the direction and magnitude of the magnetic blowout force at the arc root so as to restrain the development of the airflow vortex effectively and solve the problem of arc root stagnation when the small current is interrupted.The simulation results show that the circuit breaker with improved structure has a better performance for a small current interruption range from 100 A to 350 A.

A Fault Current Limiting Hybrid DC Circuit Breaker

Due to the low impedance characteristic of the high voltage direct current(HVDC)grid,the fault current rises extremely fast after a DC-side fault occurs,and this phenomenon seriously endangers the safety of the HVDC grid.In order to suppress the rising speed of the fault current and reduce the current interruption requirements of the main breaker(MB),a fault current limiting hybrid DC circuit breaker(FCL-HCB)has been proposed in this paper,and it has the capability of bidirectional fault current limiting and fault current interruption.After the occurrence of the overcurrent in the HVDC grid,the current limiting circuit(CLC)of FCL-HCB is put into operation immediately,and whether the protected line is cut off or resumed to normal operation is decided according to the fault detection result.Compared with the traditional hybrid DC circuit breaker(HCB),the required number of semiconductor switches and the peak value of fault current after fault occurs are greatly reduced by adopting the proposed device.Extensive simulations also verify the effectiveness of the proposed FCL-HCB.

Metamorphic Manipulating Mechanism Design for MCCB Using Index Reduced Iteration

The present research on moulded case circuit breaker（MCCB） focuses on the enhancement of current-limiting interrupting performance during short circuit, overload, under voltage and phase failure, involving electrics, magnetic, mechanics, thermal, material, friction, arc extinguishing, impact vibration, skin effect, etc. The rigid-flexible coupling of the parts and components of the metamorphic manipulating mechanism in multi-fields leads to the non-rigid, high frequency, high damping, singularity of the Euler-Lagrange equations which represents the multi-body dynamics. The small step iteration which is used for obtaining the instantaneous and short time critical interrupting performance of metamorphic mechanism appears inaccuracy. It is difficult to realize top-down design by existing CAD systems. Therefore, a metamorphic manipulating mechanism design method for MCCB using index reduced iteration（IRI） is put forward. The metamorphic manipulating mechanism of MCCB is decomposed into three mechanisms： main switch connector mechanism, electromagnet-drawbar-jump buckle mechanism, and bimetallic strip-drawbar mechanism, which is respectively described by electro-dynamic force, electromagnet force, and bimetallic strip force. The dummy part（virtual rigid） without moment of inertia and mass is employed as intermediate to join the flexible body and rigid body. The model of rigid-flexible coupling metamorphic mechanism multi-body dynamics is built. The differential algebraic equations（DAEs） of the multibody dynamics model are converted to pure ordinary differential equations（ODEs） by coordinate partition. Order reduced integration with multi-step and variable step-size is preceded based on IRI. The non-linear algebraic equations are solved in each integration step by Newton-Rapson iteration. There is no ill-condition and singularity of Jacobian matrix when step size reduces to zero. The independent prototype design system using ACIS R13, HOOPS V11.0 and Visual C＋＋.NET 2003 has been developed, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method enhances the current-limiting interrupting performance of MCCB, and has reference significance for multi-body dynamics design for similar flexible metamorphic mechanisms in multi-fields.

A Hybrid Circuit Breaker Based on Current Commutation Approach for Multi-feeder DC Railway Substations

The paper presents an economic hybrid circuit breaker for limiting and interrupting the faults in DC railways substations. For fast fault current interruption, the hybrid breaker incorporates high speed mechanical contacts actuated by power semiconductor devices. Additionally, to avoid formation of electric arc, a commutation circuit is used to inject a counter current during fault interruption. In a real railway substation, each feeder is connected to the main DC bus through an expensive air magnetic DC circuit breaker and to an auxiliary DC bus through another expensive breaker. This leads to high cost especially in railway substation with multi feeders which are used to energize the vehicle transmission lines. In this paper, all DC breakers in DC railway substations are replaced by the suggested circuit breaker, which consists of a high speed mechanical contact with two semiconductor devices in each feeder and only one commutation circuit for injecting the counter current in all faulted feeders. The fault diagnosis is designed to detect the abnormal condition (current or voltage) in all feeders and direct the injected current from the commutation circuit to the faulted feeder only when the abnormal reaches a predetermine level. The suggested breaker is able to detect and interrupt any cascading of faults.

Circuit Model with Current Interruption for Hybrid High Voltage DC Circuit Breakers to Achieve Precise Current Experiments

The current interruption test based on an LC resonance circuit for hybrid DC circuit breakers(HVDC CBs)is widely employed to characterize the current interruption capability of CBs.In order to ensure a high-fidelity replica of the fault current in a high voltage application,this paper first proposes an equivalent model of the test circuit,where not only parasitic resistances but also the threshold voltages and on-state resistances of various semiconductor devices are considered.Moreover,the analytical formula of the test current is derived by including the working principle of the HVDC CB.Secondly,the parameter extraction method,which combines finite element analysis and measurements by an impedance analyzer,is given in this paper.The extracted result implies that,in current interruption transients,equivalent resistances of 500 kV CB are as large as 535 mS,which have a significant influence on current waveforms.Thirdly,the 34 kV/25 kA current interruption test for the 500 kV CB is conducted.The measured results are proved to be consistent with the analytical results obtained from the proposed model,and the relative error is less than 2%.