Design of online circuit breaker condition monitoring hardware

Traditionally, repair of circuit breaker is done in a scheduled time in power substations. The maintenance time is calculated from circuit breaker fault history, number of operations, age and etc. It is shown that time based maintenance has little outcome in detecting the defects that may cause imminent failures. On the other hand, with condition-based maintenance, we can ensure that repair is carried out only when it is actually required. With the fast progress of sensor, electronic and information technology, implementation of an online circuit breaker monitoring system has become practical in power substations. This paper systematically describes the hardware architecture of a general purpose online circuit breaker monitoring system which is able to monitor a variety of circuit breakers with different technologies. The purpose of the developed system is to provide specific information about the conditions of the circuit breaker parts. With the help of this information, it is possible to predict the circuit breaker incoming faults and potential defects.