Application of bidirectional transient voltage suppressor for electric arc suppression in LV switches - simulation and laboratory case study

This paper presents the analysis of bidirectional Transient Voltage Suppressor (TVS) application for limitation of the electric arc energy in a low voltage circuit. The study employs both simulations and laboratory experiments, which were conducted to present inductive current breaking procedure with use of a standard switch and a switch with passive arc suppressor connected in parallel. EMTP-ATP simulations, where modeling of electric arc behavior was based on Cassie-Mayr black-box model with accordingly estimated parameters, provided satisfactory convergence with data obtained during experiments. Therefore, it can be concluded that in this case, the simulation is an accurate representation of physical nature of the analyzed switching process. Hence, developed computer model can be used to analyze switching overvoltages, current distribution, power and energy dissipated at semiconductor branch, as well as, power and energy of electric arc.