doi:10.14311/ppt.2019.3.

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Plasma Physics and Technology 6(3):223–226, 2019 © Department of Physics, FEE CTU in Prague, 2019

SWITCHING BEHAVIOR OF A SERIES CONNECTION OF A VACUUM

INTERRUPTER AND A GAS CIRCUIT BREAKER

N. Göttea,∗ , M. Bendiga , T. Kramperta , P.G. Nikolicb

a
Institute for High Voltage Technology, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany
b
Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
∗
[email protected]

Abstract. After being in the focus of sciences’ and industry’s research and development activities
for many years, the investigation of possible SF6 gas-alternatives has been even more intensified
after the revision of the European F-Gas regulation 517/2014. As natural gases yield a significantly
lower dielectric strength in comparison to SF6 , new challenges arise for the design of high voltage
switchgear. Vacuum interrupters are environmentally friendly, reliable and able to withstand steep
rising transient recovery voltages. In the last years, first installations of switchgear based on vacuum
switching technology in sub-transmission level are in operation. One option for the realization of a SF6
free high voltage switchgear for transmission level is the combination of a gas circuit breaker filled with
an atmospheric gas with a vacuum interrupter in a hybrid switchgear. In this contribution the voltage
distribution and switching behavior of a hybrid circuit breaker is experimentally investigated.
Keywords: vacuum circuit breaker, gas circuit breaker, hybrid circuit breaker, post-arc current,
recovery voltage.

1. Introduction the postarc current of the VCB has a great impact

on voltage distribution of the series connection after
Nowadays sulphur hexafluoride (SF6 ) is the state-of- CZ [2, 3]. Therefore, this work focuses on postarc
the-art insulating and arc-quenching medium used in current of the VCB and the relevance for the series
gas-insulated switchgear, enabling safe current inter- connection and the voltage distribution after CZ.
ruption and high dielectric strength. At the same
time, if released to the environment, SF6 is a potent 2. Test Setup and Procedure
greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential.
The investigated series connection consists of a com-
After being on the agenda of research and develop-
mercial VCB and a self-blast GCB model. The VCB is
ment activities of science and industry for many years,
driven by a spring mechanism and has radial-magnetic-
the revision of the European regulation on fluorinated
field (RMF) contacts. The GCB model is constructed
gases in 2014 even more turned the focus on the prop-
modularly so the contact distance, nozzle-system,
erties of possible gas-substitutes for SF6 . In the field of
heating volume etc. can be varied. The contact sys-
medium-voltage technology, vacuum circuit breakers
tem is made of tungsten-copper (WCu) and and in
(VCB) have almost completely replaced other breaking
this work a fixed contact distance of 40 mm is used.
principles. These circuit breakers are reliable, envi-
The contacts embedded into a nozzle-system with
ronmentally friendly and low-maintenance. In recent
a heating channel made of polytetrafluoroethylene
years, there are efforts to further develop the vacuum (PTFE), which leads through a 90 degree bend into
technology to make it suitable for the high voltage the heating volume. The entire circuit breaker model
level. On one hand VCB can deal with very high rate- is rotationally symmetric. CO2 is used as insulation
of-rise-of-recovery voltage (RRRV) and the highest and quenching gas. The switching arc in the GCB is
short-circuit currents, on the other hand, dielectric initiated by a copper ignition wire with a diameter of
performance of vacuum is not rising linearly with the 60 µm.
contact distance as it does in gases. One possible
approach for an environmentally friendly switchgear 2.1. Test Setup
for the high voltage level is a combination of VCB The used synthetic test circuit is shown in Figure 1
and gas circuit breaker (GCB) as a series connection. and consists of two parts, the high current and the
The interest in a hybrid circuit breaker concept has high voltage circuit. After charging the capacitors
existed for almost 30 years [1], but never became a CHC and CHV the test is initiated by the making
commercially available switchgear due to the success switch (MS). A half-cycle of a sinusoidal current with
of the SF6 circuit breaker. a frequency of f ≈ 50 Hz is fed into to the device-
In this contribution interaction and switching behavior under-test (DUT). Shortly before CZ the auxiliary
of a CO2 -filled GCB and a VCB in a series connection switch (AS) is opened, the spark gap (SG) is trig-
around and after CZ is analyzed. It is known that gered and the injection current of the high voltage

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N. Götte, M. Bendig, T. Krampert, P.G. Nikolic Plasma Physics and Technology

4
MS LHC AS Iinj SG LHV
A
3
GCB V VDGCB
2

Ipostarc in A
DUT Rp

CHC CHV
VCB V VDVCB Cp
1

A Itotal
0
High Current Circuit High Voltage Circuit 0 5 10 15 20
Ipeak in kA

Figure 1. Test circuit consisting of high current and Figure 2. Variation of the current amplitude at
high voltage circuit. 10 A/µs, 6 kV/µs and 8 ms arcing time.

circuit is superimposed onto the test current. The 6

current steepness in CZ is independent of the current 5
amplitude and is set by the charging voltage of CHV
and the resonance frequency of the high voltage cir- 4

Ipostarc in A
cuit. The rate-of-rise-of-recovery-voltage (RRRV or 20 A/µs
3
du/dtCZ ) is set by the parallel network Rp and Cp . 15 A/µs
The measurement data is recorded with a high res- 2 10 A/µs
olution (12 bit), high frequency (100 MHz) optically 5 A/µs
isolated measurement system. The postarc current is 1
measured in the high voltage circuit (Iinj ) with a coax-
0
ial shunt resistor (25 mΩ) protected by anti parallel 0 10 20 30 40 50
diodes. To determine the current through the circuit RRRV in kV/µs
breaker, the current through the stray capacitance is
subtracted from the measured current value. The tran-
Figure 3. Variation of current steepness and RRRV
sient recovery voltage (TRV) over the circuit breakers
at Ipeak = 2.6 kA and 8 ms arcing time.
are measured with two 1000:1 voltage dividers (VD),
the total TRV is calculated by addition of these two
signals. For each data point at least five measurements were
carried out. To achieve different du/dtCZ values at
3. Experimental Results a specific di/dt the parallel resistance of the parallel
3.1. Vacuum circuit breaker network Rp is varied in three steps. It is evident that
To analyze the influence of postarc current on the the peak value of postarc current has a dependency
series connection the behavior of VCB in single oper- with the set di/dt in CZ. A change of du/dtCZ shows
ation is analyzed. Using the synthetic test circuit the no change on the postarc current peak value of the
current amplitude, the current steepness at CZ and VCB. Similar results regarding the current steepness
the voltage steepness after CZ are set independently and the postarc current in CZ are shown in [1].
to determine the impact on the postarc current. With
the gained information a direct comparison with the 3.1.3. Contact distance
series connection is possible. From theory and other investigations it is known that
the contact-distance has a direct correlation with the
3.1.1. Current amplitude peak value of the postarc current [5]. The opening of
The current amplitude is varied in the range from 2 kA the VCB is recorded using a high speed camera and
to 16 kA peak current. All other parameters, especially synchronized with the set arcing time. In Figure 4 the
the current steepness (10 A/µs), RRRV (6 kV/µs) and measured relation between the contact distance at CZ
arcing time (8 ms) is set constant. and the measured maximum value of the postarc cur-
Figure 2 shows the postarc current amplitude in rent is shown. A dependence between the maximum
dependence of the current amplitude. In contrast to value of the postarc current and the contact distance
[4] no direct correlation with the current amplitude is is visible.
visible. As only currents up to 16 kA are investigated,
the influence of contracted arc mode is supposed to
3.2. Series Connection
be low.
For the investigations of the series connection different
3.1.2. Current steepness and RRRV types of voltage distributions after CZ are observed.
The variation of the current steepness, RRRV and The most basic type is the capacitive voltage distribu-
the resulting postarc currents are shown in Figure 3. tion. It is observed at voltage pulses without a prior

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vol. 6 no. 3/2019 Switching Behavior of a Series Connection

2.5 Fig. 5: CGgcb ) has no effect on the voltage distribution.

For the given results in this investigation the division
13 pF
2 ratio is about C C2 ≈ 100 pF = 0.13. In the test setup
1

this division ratio can easily be varied by changing

Ipostarc in A

1.5 the breakers on high voltage and ground side, the

connection of the voltage divider or the distances to
1 ground. Moreover, external grading capacities can be
added to change the voltage distribution. To evaluate
0.5 the influence of postarc current on the voltage distri-
bution, the uninfluenced division ratio of the setup is
0 necessary.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 In Figure 6 two voltage distributions are compared.
Contact distance in mm
In both experiments the TRV shape is the same. In
Figure 4. Variation of the contact distance of the the left one the TRV is applied without a prior current
VCB at Ipeak = 2.6 kA, di/dt = 10 A/µs and du/dt = interruption. Therefore the voltage is divided mainly
14 kV /µs. by the capacitive division ratio and the TRV rises
for the most part across the GCB. In the right part
the postarc current of the VCB leads to a failure in
the GCB and in the first microseconds the TRV rises
CGgcb CGCB CVDgcb C1 across the VCB.

CVCB CVDvcb CGvcb C2 3.2.2. Influence of Postarc Current

In Figure 7 two experiments of a current interruption
with the series connection are presented. In Figure 7
a) a high current- and voltage steepness is set. A
Figure 5. Relevant capacities for the voltage distribu-
tion in the test circuit. postarc current of around 6 A flows through the series
connection and the GCB fails. After 10–15 µs the
voltage distribution changes into a capacitive voltage
current interruption, for example lightning impulses division. In Figure 7 b) the current steepness di/dtCZ
with open contacts. is set to 3.13 A/µs and the voltage steepness at the
During the interruption process in the hybrid cir- beginning of the TRV is 0.9 kV/µs. At this ratings the
cuit breaker, the current flows through both breakers. GCB is able to suppress the postarc current in the
After CZ the differences between the postarc currents VCB and the TRV rises in the first 10 µs exclusively
in the gas- and vacuum circuit breaker plays a ma- over the GCB. In some experiments with these param-
jor role in the voltage distribution. Typically, the eters, late (up to several microseconds) breakdowns
postarc current of the GCB is in the range of several of the VCB are observed. In all cases the GCB is able
milliamperes, the postarc current of the VCB is in to withstand the whole TRV because the dielectric
the range of several amperes. Since the current in a recovery of the CO2 gas is fast enough and no failure
series connection must flow through both breakers, of the hybrid circuit breaker appeared. In single oper-
two scenarios are possible. The postarc current of ation of the VCB no breakdown in that voltage range
the VCB forces a current flow through the GCB and was recorded.
the switching gap in the GCB stays conductive. The
second possibility is that the postarc current of the
4. Discussion
VCB is suppressed by the GCB. Depended on the spe-
cific values of the postarc current a transition phase To evaluate the operating principle of a gas and vac-
between these two operations is conceivable. uum circuit breaker in a series connection the VCB
is investigated separately. The postarc current of the
3.2.1. Capacitive Voltage distribution VCB and the critical di/dt of the GCB at a specific
The voltage distribution between both breakers during switching case has the greatest influence on the volt-
a switching pulse without prior current interruption age distribution. For the used RMF-type VCB the
depends only on the capacitive ratio. The stray capac- contact distance and the di/dtCZ changes the values
itance of VCB is higher than that to the GCB due to of the postarc current.
the smaller contact distance and larger contact surface When the postarc current of the VCB is suppressed
of the VCB. In Figure 5 the relevant capacities for by the GCB, late breakdowns of the VCB occur. It is
the voltage distribution are given: the capacities of suspected, that the suppression of the post arc current
the breakers, the capacities of the voltage divider and directly relates to the VCBs dielectric recovery. In
the ground capacity in parallel to the circuit breaker theory the charged particles in the contact gap of the
placed on the ground side. The ground capacity in VCB are removed by the postarc current with the
parallel to the breaker on the high voltage side (cf. help of the TRV. When this process is suppressed by

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N. Götte, M. Bendig, T. Krampert, P.G. Nikolic Plasma Physics and Technology

Voltage Distribution Switching Impulse Voltage Distribution After Current Interruption

0 0
UVCB UGCB
-5 -5

-10 Spark Gap -10 GCB failed

Breakdown
UTRV in kV

UTRV in kV
-15 -15 Arc Voltage
GCB
-20 -20

U GCB U GCB UVCB

-25 UGCB -25
U VCB U VCB
-30 U TRV UTRV -30 U TRV UTRV

-35 -35
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
time in µs time in µs

Figure 6. Comparison of voltage distribution. Left: Without current interruption. Capacitive voltage distribution.
Right: Voltage distribution after current interruption. Failed interruption in the GCB due to the postarc current of
the VCB.

a) Voltage Distribution - With Postarc Current

10 the transition phase, the distribution ratio changes
di/dt: 24.54 A/µs I I with the speed of dielectric recovery of the GCB. In
0 U
U
GCB
the last phase the voltage distribution depends only
VCB
-10 U on the capacitive ratio.
U TRV
GCB 2. For low current steepness in CZ or high interrup-
-20 Arc
Voltage tion performance of the GCB, the postarc current of
GCB the VCB is suppressed by the GCB. The arc quenching
-30 U
VCB
takes place in the GCB. The charged particles between
-40
du/dt
TRV
: -4.15 kV/µs the VCB contacts can only be discharged very slowly
U
-50 TRV
and the TRV rises almost exclusively across the GCB.
Late breakdowns appear in the VCB.
0 5 10 15 20 25 For the voltage distribution and the interruption pro-
time in µs
cess of a hybrid circuit breaker, the postarc current
b) Voltage Distribution - No Postarc Current
20 of the VCB plays a major role. The probability of a
10
di/dt: 3.13 A/µs I failure of the GCB and therefore a rise of the TRV in
I U
0
GCB the first microseconds above the VCB increases with
U
VCB
U U
the peak value of the postarc current.
-10 VCB TRV

-20
No
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-30 postarc du/dt
TRV 1
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