Investigation on arcing behaviors in high-voltage switchgear with a rotary interruption technology

A rotary interruption technology is expected to significantly promote the breaking performance of high voltage switchgear. When the technology is introduced into a fault current interruption, arc plasma is driven to mitigate the erosion pattern of contact surface. However, there still remains little understanding on the arcing behaviors between a pair of rotating electrodes. In this paper, it presents a rotary electrode by accelerating the rotary motion of arc spontaneously. The objective of this paper is to investigate the arcing behaviors of a pair of rotating electrodes. A 3D magneto-hydrodynamic model is built up with a reasonable boundary condition, by applying the different rotating speed to the rotating electrode. Three kinds of rotating speed are assigned, which include: 1000/π rad/ s, 1000/2π rad/s, and 1000/3π rad/s, in order to investigate the influence of rotating speed on the characteristics of arc plasma. Based on the simulation results, it describes the basic mechanism and evolution of arc.