Electromagnetic Design of Ultrafast Electromechanical Switches

Author

Puumala, Veikko ; Kettunen, Lauri

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Tampere Univ. of Technol., Tampere, Finland

Volume

30

Issue

3

fYear

2015

fDate

Jun-15

Firstpage

1104

Lastpage

1109

Abstract

To open electromechanical switches within the range of tens of microseconds, we exploit repulsive electromagnetic forces between current-carrying conductor loops. For this we study the power conversion efficiency from electromagnetic to kinetic form. These studies suggest connecting moving coils in series rather than employing inductive coupling. These techniques are put into practice in two prototype switches: the first one is based on induction and the other on series connected coils. Measurements with a high-speed camera verify that both switches achieve accelerations in the magnitude of 140000 g and breaking distances of 1 mm within 50 μs. The switch with series connected coils obtains 44% greater force than the one based on induction.

Keywords

electromagnetic induction; electromechanical actuators; switchgear; current-carrying conductor loop; distance 1 mm; electromagnetic design; electromagnetic force; high-speed camera; inductive coupling; kinetic form; power conversion efficiency; series connected coil; time 50 mus; ultrafast electromechanical switches; Coils; Conductors; Contacts; Current measurement; Force; Power conversion; Switches; Acceleration; electromagnetic launching; energy conversion; switches;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Delivery, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8977

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPWRD.2014.2362996

Filename

6922578