APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE FOR REDUCING THE HEAT GENERATED WHEN OPERATING A CIRCUIT BREAKER IN MEDIUM AND HIGH VOLTAGE SYSTEMS

Abstract

When operating a circuit breaker, heat is generated. This heat could be enormous in medium and high voltage systems and could most times lead to undesirable situations like circuit break explosions and fire outbreak in the substation. This work used mathematical analysis to examine the parameters for heat generation when operating a circuit breaker in medium and high voltage systems namely: the resistance of the circuit breaker contact material, the current through the circuit breaker contact material and the time duration of the current through the circuit breaker contact material, and discovered that the interrupted current has approximately, a doubling effect on the value of the heat energy generated when operating a circuit breaker. Reduction in the value of the interrupted current via the use of series current limiting device is therefore an appropriate technique for mitigating this problem of enormous heat generation when operating a circuit breaker in medium and high voltage systems.