Analysis Of Arc Voltage During High Current Pulse on AMF - Contacts

The aim of the work is analysis of Volt-Ampere characteristics of vacuum arc for the high current pulse. The arc was ignited by the opening of the electrodes and was fed with half-sine current pulse of 10 ms duration. CuCr axial magnetic field contacts were used. Investigations for each contact pairs were done in the range of arc currents up to the levels of guaranteed failure when transient recovery voltage (TRV) applied. Oscillograms of current and arc voltage were compared with the results of highspeed video. It is shown that analysis of current-voltage characteristics allows to determine the ignition character and duration of arc development stage. Correlation between durations of arc development and magnetic field setting has been found.