Among the fundamental studies of arc quenching phenomena, principal concern is the physico-chemical properties of arc space. In either are quenching medium, interruption is made in the gas phase where, exitation, dessociation and recombination processes are undergone and these processes largely affect the arc quenching performance.
Sulfur hexafluoride gas, SF
6 has been found to have favorable properties for use as an arc quenching medium. This polyatomic gas shows very complicated physico-chemical behaviors when it is subjected to arcing. For the quantitative understanding of arc quenching performance in SF
6, it is of great importance to investigate the rapid reaction in gas phase.
A time resolved type mass spectrometer has been developed for this purpose and successfully applied to the studies of arc qnenching phenomena in various gases, including SF
6.
Basically, the instrument is a conventional 60° secter mass spectrometer modified for fast sampling, with peaks scanned electrostatically in a saw-tooth manner. The collector is an ion-electron multiplier and peaks are displayed on oscilloscope. The gas reaction to be studied takes place in a miniature arc chamber mounted next to the ion source.
In this paper, a detailed description is given of the instrument and its application.
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