Effects of nozzle shape on the interruption performance of thermal puffer-type gas circuit breakers

During the last decade the advanced interruption techniques, which use the arc energy itself to increase the pressure inside a chamber by PTFE nozzle ablation, have displaced the puffer circuit breakers due to reduced driving forces and better maintainability. In this paper, we have investigated thermal flow characteristics inside a thermal puffer-type gas circuit breaker (GCB) by solving the Navier–Stokes equations coupled with Maxwell's equations for considering all instability effects such as turbulence and Lorentz forces by transient arc plasmas. These relative inexpensive computer simulations might help the engineer researching and designing new advanced interrupters in order to downscale and uprate high-voltage gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) integral.