A Review of the Synergy Effect in Multibreak VCBs

At present, multibreak vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) have attracted more attention in order to meet the requirement of the environmental protection, high-voltage VCBs, capacitive current switch-off, and the dc current breaking. The advantages and disadvantages of multibreak VCBs are analyzed and discussed according to the research status. Then, the synergy effect of multibreak VCBs is proposed, which is the interaction among the arc memory, current zero characteristic, and the postarc characteristic. The target of the synergy effect is the synergy between the dynamic dielectric recovery strength and the postarc dynamic voltage distribution. The maximum breaking capacity can be obtained in the above-mentioned synergy control. Finally, the optimization design, key technology, basic theory, and application of multibreak VCBs are discussed. With the development of multibreak VCBs, it will be widely used in high-voltage level, HVdc, and pulsed-power switchgear in the future.