Calculation of Temperature Distribution Considering Thermal Non-Equilibrium

The higher quality of electric power is necessary because of the spread of electrical and electronic equipment. The performance improvement of gas circuit breaker is one of measures. Many reports have researched the numerical analysis that assumes the arc as the local thermal equilibrium in order to improve the performance of gas circuit breaker. However, the chemically non-equilibrium is remarkable at the current interruption. In addition, the thermal nonequilibrium should be considered in the post arc. In this paper, the energy conservation law was analyzed by separating the energy conservation of electron and energy conservation of heavy particle. For this reason, the calculation of reaction rate needs the electron temperature and the gas temperature in order to analyze the current interruption considering chemically non-equilibrium. As a result, the electron temperature is higher than the gas temperature near the cathode at the arc periphery. In addition, the validity of the electron temperature and the gas temperature was confirmed. Therefore, it is possible to calculate the temperature distribution considering thermal non-equilibrium.