Temperature Measurement of Copper Contact Surfaces

This paper describes the measurement of the surface temperature of copper electrodes submitted to an electric arc in a non stationary regime in air. The measurement is made with the help of an infrared camera. In the first part, the method to obtain a temperature distribution on the contact surface 40 μs after the forced and very fast arc extinction is described. In a second part of the paper we present some results obtained for anodes and cathodes and an arc current intensity around 70 A. The temperatures of the surfaces are determined in the range 550-850°C in the two cases. The dispersion may be due to the electric arc behaviour on the surfaces.