Research on current breaking and carrying property of cup shaped and horseshoe axial magnetic electrode in vacuum interrupter

Vacuum interrupter(VI) with axial magnetic electrode has superior arcing performance and well-distributed of contact erosion. Two kinds of axial magnetic electrode were assigned in this paper, which included cup shaped and horseshoe axial magnetic electrode. The objective of this paper is to research the current breaking and carrying performance of VI with cup shaped and horseshoe axial magnetic electrode, analysis and compare the differences between them. In this paper, the electromagnetic simulation method was used to analysis the magnetic field and resistance of VIs with different type of electrode. The electromagnetic simulation results show that there are some differences between VIs with cup shaped and horseshoe axial magnetic electrode. Furthermore, short-circuit current breaking and temperature rise test were implemented on VIs with different electrode. The test results were identical to the simulation results, VI with cup shaped axial magnetic electrode has better short-circuit current breaking performance, and VI with different electrode has identical temperature rise performance.