Arc Motion Behavior During Rotary Separation of Vacuum Contacts

At the moment when the contacts are separated, a metal vapor arc is generated in the gap. During the formation process, there are strong material transfer, arc root accumulation and stagnation, which causes the surface of the contact to be ablated and form a crater, resulting in the surface of the contact being broken after many times. The damage is aggravated, affecting the breaking performance. A method of contact rotation and separation is proposed to change the microscopic ionization conditions at the initial stage of arc formation, thereby affecting the motion behavior of vacuum metal vapor arc. In this paper, the influence of contact rotation on the arc characteristics is studied, and it is shown that the contact rotation promotes the transition time point of the limited arc movement in the initial stage, and the limited arc changes from bridge columnar diffusion to radial until the arc splits. The contact rotation will provide a favorable supplement to the research on the improvement of the breaking capacity of the vacuum interrupter.