EXPERIMENTAL AND SIMULATION STUDIES ON THE VOLTAGE DROP OF ARC IN LOW-VOLTAGE CIRCUIT BREAKER

International audienceIn low voltage circuit breaker (LVCB) apparatus, a current limitation is performed by increasing the arc voltage. This increase is mainly realized in the splitters plates of the arc chamber by additional drop voltages due to anode and cathode sheaths regions. The consideration of the voltage drops near-electrodes regions is so one of the most important mechanism to improve the description of the arc behavior in LVCB. In this paper, the arc voltage evolution has been studied by experimental and simulation by considering a simple geometry constituted by two rails runner with one or two splitters plates. One magneto hydrodynamic model in three dimensions (3D) was developed to simulate the arc motion and the arc splitting process. In order to compare with the model results, experimental tests have been carried out