Study of the arc motion characteristics of low-voltage circuit breaker based on magnetic sensor array

This paper presents a work that was aimed to study the arc motion characteristics of low-voltage circuit breaker based on the magnetic testing technology by using hall sensors to obtain the data about the magnetic field distribution. Combined with the images of arc movement obtained by the CCD camera, the relation between magnetic field distribution and the arc motion during the interruption process has been analyzed. Based on the method, the breakers with splitter plates, with ferromagnetic sheet and without splitter plates have been tested, respectively. By carrying out some experiments, the results indicate that the movement of arc has an obvious influence on the magnetic field distribution around breaker, and the ferromagnetic sheet and splitter plates have the effect of promoting the movement of the arc towards the splitter plates and speeding up the arc extinguishing.