Air Circuit Breakers

Air circuit breakers use air to extinguish the arc; air break circuit breakers use atmospheric air; airblast use compressed air

Air-Break Circuit Breakers

Air-break circuit breakers extinguish the arc by simply stretching it until the dielectric strength of the
gap is larger than the voltage across the gap. The longer arc has a larger cooling surface, thus
cooling increases and deionization of the gap between the contacts improves. The increased length
of the arc also increases its resistance and therefore decreases the current flow and the amount of
heat that is created.
The simplest way of stretching the arc is the use of horn gap shaped contacts. Due to a natural
convection of hot gases, the arc moves upward. (Figure 1)

Figure 1 Arc Interruption Using A Horn Gap

To increase the length of the arc still further, the arc is stretched by forcing it into an arc chute by
either a natural convection of the hot gas, or by blowing air from below into the arc, or by using
magnetic blowout coil. The magnetic blowout coil creates magnetic force on the arc that pulls the arc
into the arc chute.
There are two types of arc chutes. One type is made of insulating material (Figure 3), and its function
is to stretch the arc. The other type (Figure 2) is made of metal. The metal barriers chop the arc into
a series of many smaller arcs. The voltages across these smaller arcs are much lower than the total
voltage across the breaker contacts, and therefore it is easier to extinguish the arcs.

Figure 2 Arc Chute With Conducting Barriers

Figure 3 Arc Chute With Insulating Barriers

Air break circuit breakers are used from 120V domestic circuits up to 15 kV voltages. A typical crosssection through a 15 kV air-break circuit breaker is shown in Figure 4. This breaker has an insulated
plate arc chute. Notice that the breaker is equipped with an air puffer. The air puffer is situated just
below the main contacts and it is directed up into the funnel of the arc chute.

Figure 4 A Typical 15 kV Air Circuit Breaker

Air-Blast Circuit Breakers

In the air blast circuit breakers the arc is not stretched. The arc length of the air blast breakers is short
usually just a few centimeters. To extinguish the arc, a blast of compressed air is directed into the
arc path to cool the ionized gas and remove it from the gap between the breaker contacts.
An early design of an air blast circuit breaker is shown in Figure 5. Here, the contacts are held closed
by a spring. Blast of air into the interrupting head forces the contacts to open. The contacts will close
as soon as the air flow stops. Therefore, immediately after the arc is interrupted, a disconnecting
switch must open. Closing the breaker involves closing the disconnecting switch at high speed to
avoid damage to the disconnect contacts.

Figure 5 Air Blast Breaker Interrupting Head

In principle, there are only two ways in which a blast of compressed air can be blown into the arc
perpendicular to the arc (cross blast), or along its axis (axial blast). Both methods are shown in
Figures 6 and 7. The cross blast use is limited because it is difficult to develop the air velocity
needed for high voltage breakers. All modern breakers use the axial blast. The air blast circuit
breakers are built up to the highest used voltages (765 kV) by connecting several interrupter heads in
series.

Figure 6 Principle of Cross Air Blast Breaker

Figure 7 Principle of Axial Air Blast Breaker

The breaker in Figure 8 has six interrupters per phase. Compressed air is held in grounded air
receivers, inside the support column, and the interrupter heads. The opening movements of the main
contacts (2) are controlled by an exhaust valve (1). The opening movement of the main contacts
charges the spring (4) that drives the main contacts during closing operation.

(a) View of the Breaker

(b) Schematic Drawing of the Interrupting Head

Figure 8 Air Blast Breaker Type AS, GEC

Stations equipped with air blast breakers must have a reliable supply of compressed air. The
atmospheric air when compressed is saturated with water vapor. Before it is used for arc extinction, it
must be dried to ensure that there is no condensation of water on the internal insulation surfaces.

Current Chopping in Air Blast Breakers

The action of the air blast breakers is independent of the magnitude of the current that is being
interrupted. The same powerful blast of air needed for interrupting high currents is applied to interrupt
low currents. This results in extinguishing the arc before the current goes through zero. In an
inductive circuit, all electromagnetic energy is converted to electrostatic energy.

From this we can calculate the voltage that will develop across the breaker contacts as

When this voltage exceeds the dielectric strength of the gap, the arc restrikes. The air keeps blowing
and blows the arc out again, the voltage goes up, arc restrikes again, and this keeps repeating until
the current crosses zero. The result is a current waveform that has a chopped appearance.
To limit the voltage across the breaker contacts, the breakers are fitted with a resistor across their
contacts. The maximum voltage that will develop across the contacts is then
e=iR
The actual circuit conditions are much more complex and depend on the system conditions during the
circuit interruption, especially if there are several interrupter heads per phase. It was found that
resistors of the order of 20 to 50 ohms per 1 kV rms of the three-phase voltage are satisfactory.