Investigation of ramped air arcs near current zero in dual-flow nozzle system

Author

Serbetci, I. ; Nagamatsu, H.T.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., Rensselaer Polytech. Inst., Troy, NY, USA

Volume

5

Issue

1

fYear

1990

fDate

1/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

170

Lastpage

176

Abstract

Ramped air arcs with a dI/dt= 6 A/μs were investigated in dual-flow nozzle system. The nozzle pressure ratio was varied to study the arc under different flow Mach number gradients. The dI/dt, dV/dt, and postzero resistance and current measurements were taken for an electrode separation of 5.5 cm and a nozzle gap spacing of 1.23 cm. The adverse shock wave effects were quantitatively observed for nozzle pressure ratios with separated flow in the nozzle. The arc power, which is equal to the total radiation losses and heat transferred from the plasma, was determined near current zero for subsonic and supersonic flow fields. It was shown that the nozzle pressure ratio is a very important parameter in the circuit breaker performance. A comparison of this work with Brown Boveri data was made. It was concluded that the convection stabilized ramped arcs near current zero are laminar and become unstable in the dielectric regime

Keywords

arcs (electric); gas blast circuit breakers; nozzles; Brown Boveri; adverse shock wave effects; arc power; circuit breaker performance; convection stabilized ramped arcs; current measurements; current zero; dual-flow nozzle system; electrode separation; flow Mach number gradients; nozzle gap spacing; nozzle pressure ratio; postzero resistance measurements; ramped air arcs; subsonic flow fields; supersonic flow fields; total radiation losses; Circuit breakers; Copper; Dielectrics; Electrodes; Gases; Mechanical engineering; Plasma properties; Plasma waves; Shock waves; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Delivery, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8977

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/61.107270

Filename

107270