Development of novel hybrid puffer interrupting chamber for SF/sub 6/ gas circuit breaker utilizing self-pressure-rise phenomena by arc

A novel puffer interrupting chamber is developed which is designed to evaluate pressure rise by guiding the thermal energy of the arc effectively into a puffer cylinder. This interrupting chamber has high blasting pressure, suitable for interrupting from low up to high current levels, providing interrupting performance considerably better than that of conventional interrupting puffer chambers. Particularly, its performance during short arcing is excellent, providing reduced minimum arcing time. For an 84 kV, 31.5 kA interrupting chamber, pressure calculations on an arc model and interruption tests were conducted to compare the interrupting performance of the new chamber with that of a conventional double-flow puffer interrupting chamber.>