Influence of arc-melted cathode layer depth on vacuum insulation

It is well known that after current interruptions, a fine Cu-Cr melted layer is formed on the electrode surface, and the vacuum insulation between electrodes is improved. However, the influence of the depth of the arc-melted layer on the vacuum insulation is still not clear. The objective of this paper is to determine the influence of the depth of the arc-melted layer of the cathode on the vacuum insulation. A 12 kV vacuum interrupter with a pair of rod-plane electrodes was designed. A DC current source was applied to the vacuum interrupter, and the rod electrode was chosen as the anode. A drawn vacuum arc in the anode spot mode was used to generate melted layers with different depths on the rod electrode. The arcing time was controlled to 0, 10, 46 or 73 ms. Then, the vacuum gap was adjusted to 1 mm to measure the basic lightning impulse breakdown voltage. Standard positive-polarity 1.2/50 μs lightning impulses were applied by a basic up-down method, in which the rod electrode was the cathode. Experimental results revealed that the breakdown probability followed a Weibull distribution when the breakdown voltage reached saturation. The 50% breakdown voltage U50 with arcing times of 0, 10, 46 and 73 ms was 55.6, 73.3, 75.5 and 77.9 kV, respectively. Next, a cross section of the rod electrode was analyzed using an electron microscope, and the average depths of the arc-melted layers were 0, 5, 35 and 65 μm at current arcing times of 0, 10, 46 and 73 ms, respectively. The depth of the arc-melted layer varied approximately linearly with the arcing time. The U50 values of the vacuum gaps with the arc-melted layers were significantly larger than that without a melted layer but very close to each other for all arc-melted layer depths. Thus, the melted layer did improve the breakdown voltage, but the depth of the arc-melted layer had little influence on the breakdown voltage.