Interruption Capability of Gases and Gas Mixtures in a Puffer-Type Interrupter

SF6 gas has been widely used in arc interruption applications for the past 20 years. Reported here is a systematic, comprehensive effort to search for and evaluate gases and gas mixtures suitable as an arc interruption medium potentially superior to SF6. The search began with several hundred gases, narrowed down to about forty, and finally fifteen gases and gas mixtures were evaluated in a full size puffer-type interrupter under 60-Hz high-power conditions. The results showed SF6 stood out as having the best interruption ability with several mixtures having ~80 percent of SF6´ s performance.