Abstract
Temperature on a contact surface after a high-current vacuum arc influences on the interruption ability of a vacuum interrupter (VI). This paper shows relation between the interruption ability of the VI with AMF electrodes and the contact temperature after the high-current arc. First, 2D axis-symmetric temperature calculation model was constructed, taking into account with a two-region arc input and melting and evaporating losses. To validate these calculation results, we performed contact surface temperature measurements after high current vacuum arc, using a two-color pyrometer and high-speed flaming video. Assuming 50% of the total arc energy was consumed in the anode region, the calculation gives fairy good result. Next, for several types of AMF electrodes, their temperature variations during and after the high-current arcs were calculated and compared each other. Then these AMF electrodes were built into the prototype vacuum interrupters, and investigated under short-circuit interruption tests. As the result, the interruption ability was found to be related with peak temperature on the contact surface at current zero.
