Investigation of current conditioning process for vacuum interrupters

Vacuum interrupters are designed for high dielectric performances, short circuit breaking current and capacitive current switching. They are routinely produced. To acquire those high performances, they go through an industrial process. It includes major steps as current conditioning, voltage conditioning, and leak free check. In this work, we present our investigation about current conditioning of contacts in vacuum interrupters. This process melts the surface of the contacts and creates a thin layer of CuCr alloy. It eases voltage conditioning and capacitive current switching performances (C2 class). Different parameters have been investigated as the peak current, the current pulses duration and the gap between contacts. Alternative method as DC current conditioning was also studied. The optimum current conditioning method had been selected in order to obtain the full and homogeneous coverage of the contact surface.