The Influence of Gas-Producing Material Properties on the Breaking Performance of DC Molded Case Circuit Breaker
Li Jing, Zhu Ziyuan, Duan Wei, Fu Si, Huang Chongyang
Key Laboratory of Special Electric Machine and High Voltage Apparatus College of Electrical Engineering Shenyang University of Technology Shenyang 110870 China
Abstract：In DC molded-case circuit breakers (MCCBs), gas-generating materials are added in the limited volume of the arc chamber to improve interruption performance. When the high-temperature arc erodes these materials, they decompose rapidly, releasing large amounts of gas that increase chamber pressure, stretch the arc column, and accelerate current interruption. However, decomposition products change the plasma composition, reducing the ionization degree and thermal conductivity of the quenching gas, which affects the arc temperature distribution. In turn, the arc temperature evolution influences the chemical decomposition and gas release rate of the material, creating a strong real time coupling. Existing arc gas producing material coupled simulations often assume the material is fully gasified and uniformly distributed or ignore its dynamic gas release under time-varying arc temperature, which differs from actual physical behavior. To investigate the influence of the material properties on arc energy and shorten the arcing time in a confined arc chamber, an experimental platform was built to analyze arc motion, splitter plates utilization, and arcing duration under the action of the gas-producing material. Experiments show that adding the material decreases arc extinguishing time but also causes arc root stagnation and vortex formation inside the chamber. To improve the interruption performance, a bidirectionally coupled model combining arc magnetohydrodynamics and mass transfer of the gas producing material was established. The convection diffusion equation is used to describe the transport process of the material, and the Arrhenius equation is employed to simulate its thermal decomposition reaction. Unlike traditional models that treat the gas producing material as a preset diffusing substance, the chemical decomposition reflects the actual generation of gases from thermal degradation or reaction, thus improving physical accuracy. By introducing the reaction-rate term r as a concentration source, the model avoids empirical errors caused by artificially assigning an initial gas concentration. In addition, because the chemical decomposition of the material is strongly correlated in time and space with arc motion, the reaction diffusion model is coupled in real time with the arc magneto-hyolro-dynamics (MHD) model to simulate the changes in the arc chamber field caused by high temperature erosion of the material under real operating conditions. The simulations compute the temperature field, flow field, and the dynamic concentration distribution and partial pressure of decomposition products inside the arc chamber. The results show that thermal decomposition significantly accelerates arc heat transfer, but improper volume or placement leads to local gas accumulation. At arc runner corners, this gas interacts with the transverse flow to form vortices, which hinder arc migration, cause arc root stagnation, prolong the residence time of high temperature regions, and reduce splitter plastes utilization, making it difficult to extinguish the arc quickly. Reducing the material volume weakens vortex intensity and arc root stagnation, improving arc interruption performance. Three typical regions were analyzed: the arc runner turning corner the cathode runner, and the anode runner corner. When the material is placed at the anode-runner corner, the released gases drive the arc root upward more effectively toward the splitter plate, reducing stagnation and vortex formation, and increasing the number of utilized splitter plates to eight. To verify the accuracy of the simulation model, experiments were conducted on an improved structural platform. The observed arc behavior agrees well with the simulation results. The findings can support the optimization and miniaturization of arc chamber design in MCCBs.
李静, 朱梓源, 段薇, 付思, 黄翀阳. 产气材料特性对直流塑壳断路器电弧行为的影响[J]. 电工技术学报, 2026, 41(17): 6039-6052.
Li Jing, Zhu Ziyuan, Duan Wei, Fu Si, Huang Chongyang. The Influence of Gas-Producing Material Properties on the Breaking Performance of DC Molded Case Circuit Breaker. Transactions of China Electrotechnical Society, 2026, 41(17): 6039-6052.
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