Abstract
This paper presents the investigation of the arc extinction capability of air load break switches (AS) used in overhead power distribution systems. The interrupting capability of the load break switches (LBS) is generally determined by mutual effects between the arc behaviors of LBS and the corresponding circuit conditions. In this paper, the interaction between the arc and the corresponding circuit was described by a black box arc model based on modified Mayr arc equation. The limit values of the arc time constant, which represents the lowest limits of the arc extinction capability was obtained by repetition calculation to the measured results. The results not only showed the limit values of the arc time constant which needed for AS to interrupt the load currents, but also confirmed that AS possesses sufficient arc extinction capability to interrupt the load currents.
