A comparison of the effects of different mixture plasma properties on arc motion

A two-dimensional arc magnetohydrodynamic model is presented to study the effects of metallic vapour and gassing material on air switching arc motion based on different mixture plasma properties (pure air, 99% air–1% Cu, 99% air–1% Ag, 99% air–1% Fe, 90% air–10% PA6). It demonstrates that metallic vapours may cool the arc central region and reduce the arc motion velocity, and iron vapours have the strongest action compared with copper and silver vapours; the gassing material may improve the arc motion velocity. In addition, the effect of the net emission coefficient model and the grey body radiation model on the calculation results for pure air arc motion is compared. To verify the simulation results partially, using the integrated imaging diagnostics system, experiments are carried out to measure the average velocity of arc motion with one model chamber.