Analysis of Fault Arc in High-Speed Switch Applied in Hybrid Circuit Breaker

The behavior of fault arc in a high-speed switch (HSS) has been studied theoretically and experimentally. A simplified HSS setup is designed to support this work. A two-dimensional arc model is developed to analyze the characteristics of fault arc based on magnetic-hydrodynamic (MHD) theory. The advantage of such a model is that the thermal transfer coefficient can be determined by depending on the numerical method alone. The influence of net emission coefficients (NEC) radiation model and P1 model on fault arc is analyzed in detail. Results show that NEC model predicts more radiation energy and less pressure rise without the re-absorption effect considered. As a consequence, P1 model is more suitable to calculate the pressure rise caused by fault arc. Finally, the pressure rise during longer arcing time for different arc currents is predicted. (paper)