Post Arc Current in Vacuum Interrupters

In this paper, post arc current phenomena in vacuum interrupters are experimentally investigated. This investigation is focused on the relation between post arc current and many factors such as contact materials, electrode structures, and gap length between electrodes. It has been previously investigated that an increasing arc current causes post arc current to increase rapidly at a certain arc current value. It was proved that this phenomenon was caused by melting of the anode, and that the axial magnetic field electrode allowed current density on the anode to decrease, consequently restraining anode melting.