Experimental research on the current limiting performance of liquid metal current limiter

This paper focuses on the experimental research of current limiting performance of a liquid metal current limiter based on pinch effects. A specially designed test setup is adopted to observe the dynamic process of the fluid pinch process. From the frames obtained by high-speed camera, its pinch mechanism is revealed. Furthermore, the arc behavior is studied, which can be classified into four stages: arc ignition, arc elongation, arc constriction and arc extinction. Finally, the impacts on the arc properties from the inner pressure owing to arc burning in the enclosure is discussed and analyzed. It indicates that if this pressure is great enough, the liquid metal probably driven to flow back into the channel to reconnect the circuit before current zero.