Numerical simulation of high-current vacuum arc in short gap

作者：Xiang Chuan^*; Liao Min Fu; Dong Hua Jun; Huang Zhi Hui; Zou Ji Yan

来源：High Voltage Engineering, 2011, 37(11): 2693-2699.

• Anode surfaces
• Arc current
• Axial current density
• Axial velocity
• CMOS image
• High-current
• Interruption performance
• Maximum values
• Plasma pressures
• Radial gradient
• Short gap
• Vacuum arc
• Vacuum arcs
• Vacuum circuit breaker

The plasma status of vacuum arc before arc current zero, has a great influence on the interruption performance of the vacuum circuit breakers. In this paper, a vacuum arc model in a short gap was established based on the magnet hydrodynamic (MHD) and a common computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software was utilized to specially investigate the properties of this arc. The spatial distributions of plasma pressure, plasma density, ion axial velocity, and axial current density in front of the anode surface of vacuum arc in this case were obtained. Simulation results indicate that: from the cathode to the anode, both of the plasma pressure and the plasma density increase gradually, and the plasma axial velocity decreases gradually; the axial current density in front of anode has a large radial gradient, and the maximum value is still smaller than the threshold current density for the anode-spot formation, thus, the anode is still passive. The comparison between the plasma density of simulation and the CMOS images taken by the high-speed camera indicates that they are in reasonable agreement with each other and demonstrates the feasibility of the vacuum arc model.

• 出版日期2011