The Oil-Blast Circuit Breaker

The principle of operation of oil circuit breakers has been conceived to the present time as deionization of the arc stream during the time required for the recovery voltage to appear across the circuit breaker terminals. An alternative principle is here developed in which the arc products are swept away by the scavenging action of an oil blast. As a logical development from this conception a new type of oil circuit breaker is described which owes its efficiency to careful provision for a scavenging blast of oil which is driven by the gas pressure from one break and which displaces the arc in the space between the electrodes of another break.