Post-arc sheath simulation in vacuum circuit breaker with one-dimensional particle in cell-Monte Carlo collisions method

In this paper, a one-dimensional (1-D) particle in cell-Monte Carlo collisions (PIC-MCC) model is developed to study the process of post-arc sheath expansion. In this model, both electrons and ions are treated as particles with their thermal velocities obeying the Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution. The model takes the collision effects of ion-neutral (charge exchange collision and momentum exchange collision), and electron-neutral (scatter collision, excitation collision and ionization collision) into consideration. The simulation results are also compared with that calculated by the classical continuous transition model (CTM). In present work, the influence of some important factors, e.g. the density of initial residual plasma, the density of background metal vapor, the rising rate of transient recovery voltage (TRV) on the sheath expanding process are investigated.