Air Blast

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Air Blast Circuit Breakers

Air blast circuit breakers


• These breakers employ a high pressure air-blast as an arc
quenching medium.
• The contacts are opened in a flow of air-blast established by
the opening of blast valve. The air-blast cools the arc and
sweeps away the arcing products to the atmosphere.
• This rapidly increases the dielectric strength of the medium
between contacts and prevents from re-establishing the arc.
• Consequently, the arc is extinguished and flow of current is
interrupted.

Advantages
(i) The risk of fire is eliminated.
(ii) The arcing products are completely removed by the blast ,the
expense of regular oil replacement is avoided.
(iii) The growth of dielectric strength is so rapid that final
contact gap needed for arc extinction is very small.
This reduces the size of the device.
(iv) The arcing time is very small due to the rapid build up of
dielectric strength between contacts. Therefore, the arc
energy is only a fraction of that in oil circuit breakers,
thus resulting in less burning of contacts.
(v) Due to lesser arc energy, air-blast circuit breakers are
very suitable for conditions where frequent operation is
required.
(vi) The energy supplied for arc extinction is obtained from
high pressure air and is independent of the current to be
interrupted.
Disadvantages.
The use of air as the arc quenching medium offers the
following disadvantages :
(i) The air has relatively inferior arc extinguishing properties.
(ii) The air-blast circuit breakers are very sensitive to the
variations in the rate of rise of restriking voltage.
(iii) Considerable maintenance is required for the
compressor plant which supplies the air-blast.
The air blast circuit breakers are finding wide applications in
high voltage installations. Majority of the circuit breakers for
voltages beyond 110 kV are of this type.
Types of Air Blast Circuit Breakers

(i) Axial-blast type


air-blast is directed along the arc path

(ii) Cross-blast type in which the air-


blast is directed at right angles to the
arc path

(iii) Radial-blast type in which the air-


blast is directed radially
Axial Air blast circuit breaker
• The fixed and moving contacts are held in the closed position by
spring pressure under normal conditions.
• The air reservoir is connected to the arcing chamber through an
air valve.
• This valve remains closed under normal condition.
• But opens automatically by the tripping impulse when a fault
occurs on the system.
• Air valve opens which connects the circuit breaker reservoir to
the arcing chamber.
• The moving contact is separated high pressure air entering and
an arc is struck.
• High pressure air blast flows along the arc and takes away the
ionised gases along with it.
Cross blast air breaker
• An air-blast is directed at right angles to the arc.
• The cross-blast lengthens and forces the arc into a suitable
chute for arc extinction.
• When the contact is withdrawn, an arc is struck.
• The high pressure cross-blast forces the arc into a chute
consisting of arc splitters and baffles.
• The splitters serve to increase the length of the arc and baffles
give improved cooling.
• The result is that arc is extinguished and flow of current is
interrupted.
• Since blast pressure is same for all currents, the inefficiency at
low currents is eliminated.
• Series isolating switch is not necessary.

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