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DOI: 10.1109/ICEPE.2016.7781316

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 2017 International Conference on Electromechanical and Power Systems (SIELMEN)

Aspects Regarding Controlled Switching of the

Vacuum Circuit Breaker

Elvis Boghiu, Adam Maricel, Mihai Andrusca, Alin Dragomir, Adrian Munteanu
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Department of Electrical Engineering
“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi
Iasi, Romania
elvis.boghiu@gmail.com

Abstract—The paper describes how different parameters
from vacuum circuit breaker influence the closing and opening
time. Operational voltage, ambient temperature or hydraulic
pressure can introduce delays in opening and closing the circuit
breaker. These parameters are motorized through sensors that
send all the data to a control unit. The control unit calculates the
decision/ (time) when to make controlled switching. This paper
presents a study case that demonstrates how one of the
parameter introduces delays in the opening or closing processes
of the circuit breaker.
Keywords—vacuum circuit breaker; controlled switching;
monitoring; control voltage; ambient temperature; idle time
I. INTRODUCTION
The dielectric properties of vacuum have been recognized
since the 1890s. For a long time have been attempts to use in
switching commutation. Developing vacuum circuit breakers
(VCB) was possible because of the progress of metallurgy. In
1960 the technological progress was able to provide contacts
with no gas content or to make tight and flexible joints of glass
and ceramics. The way the vacuum arc manifests itself makes
the contact wear to be very weak. Thanks to this property,
contact can resist a very large number of switches, [1].
The VCB with traditional mechanism with spring was
expensive to maintain due to the higher moving parts witch
require regular repairing and component replacement. Most of
the components witch require repair are moving parts such as
springs and gears. Because of this issue, the most popular VCB
became the one with magnetic actuator mechanism, [2].
Main components of VCB are: vacuum interrupter,
electronic controller, sensors, terminals, relays, terminal strip,
and drive mechanism. There are two ways to operate a VCB:
spring actuator and electromagnetic actuator. The
electromagnetic actuator is made from two permanent magnets,
a ferromagnetic core, excitation winding and a single moving
armature, [3]. If the VCB is driven by electromagnetic actuator,
the command can be given by electronic controller. Proximity
sensors that are connected to the electronic controller are used
to find the position of the armature. To protect low-voltage
components and to facilitate access for maintenance are
designed two compartments: low voltage compartment and
high voltage compartment. Main compartment is high voltage
compartment and is designed to sustain all the component from
line potential. This compartment is completely isolated from
low voltage compartment. Removing components from control
compartment do not disturb the layout of the entire high
voltage installation. In low voltage compartment are mounted
electronic controller, auxiliary contacts, auxiliary control
relays, terminal strip, capacitors and fuses to protect the control
unit. [4].
Electronic controller has built in an AC to DC converter
and can be operated with AC or DC control power. Some
electronic controller has a built in display or can be keyboard
programmable. Usually, VCB equipped with electronic
controller has standard control operating parameters such as
phase and ground fault minimum trip levels, selection of time-
current curve or sequence of circuit breaker operation, [5], [6].
II. REQUIREMENTS FOR CONTROLLED SWITCHING
Controlled switching or synchronous switching and also
known in literature as point-on-wave, defines operations which
are grouped in all technological solutions to make the right
command for medium or high voltage circuit breakers. These
operations are made on each phase of an AC network. The
need to use controlled switching occurred to minimize effects
of switching transients such as overcurrents and overvoltages.
A system can perform controlled switching if it fulfils the
following preconditions:
x Monitors the presence of voltage and primary current.
x Is able to calculate the current interruption time.
x Chooses on each phase a target switching instant.
x Controls each circuit breaker pol in such way that the
current is interrupted at a target instant.
x Sensors to monitor control/operating voltage, ambient
temperature, reference contact or auxiliary switches.
Switching time is varied because some internal or external
parameters are varied from various reasons. This parameters
are ambient temperature, idle time and control voltage, [7], [8].
A. Ambient temperature:
The electrical equipment in operation is subject to variable
thermal stress as a result of the transformation of

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electromagnetic energy into heat. Consequently, on normal
operating time, temperatures of different landmarks increase in
time, until the values corresponding to the permanent thermal
regime. The temperature accumulated in circuit breaker
influences the coil resistance witch influences the coil current
and lead to change the operating characteristics.
Allowable temperatures of the construction parts of the
electrical equipment are the maximum values measured with
specific methods. These temperatures allow safety and long-
lasting performance for the electrical equipment without
significant changes of their mechanical and electrical
properties.
If the outside temperatures are high, it is no longer possible
to remove the heat inside the equipment causing the
mechanical parts to expand. If the outside temperature is too
low, there is a contraction of the mechanical parts. All these
temperature variations can influence the switching time of the
switches.
B. Idle time
Idle time is the interval between last connecting and
disconnecting operation to the next operation. Idle time is
caused by consecutive operations and it depends by the
operating mechanism. Circuit breakers with electromagnetic
actuators and springs showed insignificant idle time
dependence and circuit breaker with hydraulic operated
mechanism, closing time increases and is saturated at 2 seconds
after, if the idle time is bigger than 72 hours, [9]. Air bubbles
dissolved in hydraulic fluid appear when the pressure is
released during the opening and closing operations. Air
bubbles influence the response speed of hydraulic piston, [10],
[11].
C. Control voltage
Control voltage directly influences the current through the
coil, inductance and electromagnetic force. All of this features
put together, ultimately influence the velocity of mobile shaft,
[3]. The ambient temperature can influence the resistance of
the coil and the current through the coil. The control voltage
should be adjusted according to the ambient temperature.
The measurements show that if the system is not
commanded at nominal control voltage, the electromagnetic
force influences the release velocity of the ratchet release and
increase of the opening or closing time. Ratchet release time is
also influenced by the ambient temperature due the sliding
parts of the plunger. After the ratchet is released, major
dependency of operating time is attributed to ambient
temperature and small dependency to control voltage, [11],
[12], [13].
III. INFLUENCE OF CONTROL VOLTAGE IN OPENING AND
CLOSING TIME
To determine how the closing and opening time of the
circuit breaker is influenced by the control voltage, an
experiment was performed using a medium-voltage vacuum
circuit breaker. In order to see if the control voltage influences
the closing and opening times, an autotransformer was used to
supply the electromagnetic actuator. An oscilloscope has been
used to measure the closing and opening time from the moment
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when the actuator is energized until touching the contacts or
disconnecting the contacts. This assembly is shown in Fig. 1.
Assembly is made from an AC source, Tr – variable
transformer, BR – bridge rectifier, C – capacitor, K –
open/close contactor, PB – command push button, VCB –
vacuum circuit breaker (EA - electromagnetic actuator and MC
- main contacts), oscilloscope and DC sources to command the
VCB.
K VCB
AC
Vc
MC
R
EA
C ΔV
BR
Tr
DC2
DC1 PB
CH1 Vc
K
CH2 ΔV
Fig. 1. Experimental assembly used to measure opening and closing time.
Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 show the method of measuring the closing
and opening times with the oscilloscope. Channel 1 (CH1)
measures the control voltage Vc from AC source and this
source is used to power the open/close coil. Channel 2 (CH2)
measures the presence or absence of voltage ΔV at the circuit
breaker terminals. This reference voltage is provided by source
DC2. The Vc represents the control voltage evolution applied
to the electromagnetic actuator of VCB, and the ΔV is
evolution of a voltage that provides information about the
moment of touching or separation the vacuum circuit breaker
contacts. The difference in occurrence of control voltage from
AC source and occurrence voltage from DC2 represent the
opening time and the difference from control voltage from AC
source and the moment when voltage drops from DC2,
represents opening time.
From the technical sheet of the circuit breaker, we find that
the rated operating voltage of the actuator is 400 V.
Measurements start at this value and decrease downwards by
20 V. The range in which the control voltage values were
measured is between 300 V and 400 V.
Fig. 2. Measurment of closing time
 Fig. 4. Closing time for all three poles.

TABLE II. OPENING TIMES FOR ALL THREE POLES

Fig. 3. Measurment of opening time
Control
Close A (ms) Close B (ms) Close C (ms)
Below 300V, the operation of the switch is no longer safe voltage (V)
for the electrical system, as there is no possibility of closing or 400 6.2 6.1 6.1
opening the switch. 380 6.3 6.4 6.2
360 6.5 6.4 6.4
As can be seen in Table I and Fig. 4, there is a clear 340 6.9 6.6 6.7
influence of the control voltage on the closing time. At 300 V, 320 7.0 7.2 7.1
the average closing time is 35.1 ms on pole C, 34.2ms on pole 300 7.5 7.4 7.5
B and 36.1 ms on pole A. This average of times decreases on
each pole as the voltage increase. At 400 V, the average closing
time is between 26.5 ms for pole C, 25.7 ms for pole B and
26.8 ms for pole A.
At the other values of the control voltage at which the
measurements were made, the closing time decreases uniform
from 300V to 400V and no notable differences have been
observed. It can be mentioned that pole B has a lower
connection time average of about one second, but this cannot
affect the controlled switching because it will be made on each
pole.
In Table II and Fig. 5, you can see the disconnection times
of the three poles of the vacuum circuit breaker. As can be seen
from the closure times, the opening times do not vary much
anymore. At the 300V, the maximum opening time is 7.5 ms Fig. 5. Opening time for all three poles.
for the A and C poles, and at the 400 V, the maximum opening
time is 6.1 ms for the B and C poles, and 6.2 ms for pole A. There are no big differences at the opening due to the fact
The difference in disconnecting times for 300 V and 400 V is that a vacuum circuit breaker has been used, which leads to the
only 1.3 ms and is no longer as high as the connection where fact that the opening operation does not depend of the control
the difference is about 9.6 ms. voltage. The small difference that occurs is due to the fact that
from low voltage results a small electromagnetic force and
TABLE I. CLOSING TIMES FOR ALL THREE POLES triggers harder the ratchet that holds the mobile shaft.

Control TABLE III. CLOSING TIMES FOR ALL THREE POLES

Close A (ms) Close B (ms) Close C (ms)
voltage (V)
Control voltage (%)
400 26.8 25.7 26.5 Pole
75 80 85 90 85 100
380 28.1 27.2 28.1 A 134.5 121.5 116.7 111.1 105.0 100.0
Closing
360 29.8 29.1 29.2 Time B 133.3 124.1 119.6 113.4 105.9 100.0
(%) C 132.7 122.4 118.3 110.2 106.1 100.0
340 31.3 30.7 31.3
320 32.6 31.9 32.4 A 122.0 112.9 111.2 105.2 101.6 100.0
Opening
300 36.2 34.2 35.1 Time B 120.7 117.2 108.5 104.9 104.1 100.0
(%)
C 122.4 115.1 109.4 103.7 100.9 100.0

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Fig. 6. Closing and opening times for all three poles expresed in percentages
Table III shows the dependence of closing and opening
times on the control voltage, expressed as a percentage. As it
can be seen in Figure 6, if the control voltage drops to the pole
A to 75% of the nominal value, the closing time increases by
about 134.5%. As we approach the nominal control voltage, it
can be seen that at 80% from nominal control voltage, the
closing time value decreases by 13%, then by 5.8% for 85%,
5.6% for 90%, 6.1% for 95% and 5% For 100%. This decrease
tends to stabilize around 5% to reach the nominal value.
At opening, the same trend is maintained as when closing.
Time increases to a maximum of 122.4% then decreases
gradually.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
All these measurements can be generalized for all vacuum
circuit breakers that have an electromagnetic actuator for
closing operation and spring for opening operations.
The influence of the control voltage on the closing times is
high because control voltage influences the electromagnetic
force witch influences the speed of the mobile shaft. Control
voltage also influences to a small extent the opening times.
These times are smaller because the opening is made by means
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of a spring not by the electromagnetic actuator. The influence
is given by the force with which the spring ratchet is released.
If it is found that the system is unstable and the control
voltage varies when the controlled switching is made, the
voltage control must be observed. The electronic controller
must take in account this deviation from the rated voltage and
change the time of the command accordingly with voltage
control.
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