Current Conditioning Process Investigation for Vacuum Interrupter Production

Vacuum Interrupters are produced to get high dielectric performances, capacitive current switching, rated current switching, short circuit current making and interruption. To get those performances, they need to perform different steps of industrial process including current conditioning, voltage conditioning and magnetron tests. This allow to produce high quality vacuum interrupters that will fulfill our internal high-quality requirements and are able to pass power tests according to international standards. This paper will present the latest finding about current conditioning manufacturing process of Radial Magnetic Field contacts. It was found that the contact conditioning area and the metal vapor deposition on ceramic were different after it, according to different conditioning processes. Therefore, it's possible to select the optimum current conditioning process to make the voltage conditioning easier and improve the dielectric performances of VI.