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Presentation of Circuit
Breaker
Name of Student : Rubina Begum
Id : 172-142-003
Batch: EEE-EVE/34th .

Submission to : Mr. Rahmot Ullah

Senior Lecturer
Department of EEE
Submission Date: 15-08-2021
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Circuit
Breakers
Circuit Breakers:
The advancement of power system, the lines and other equipment operate at
very high voltages and carry large currents. The arrangement of switches
along with fuses cannot serve the desired function of switchgear in such high
capacity circuits. This necessitates to employ a more dependable means of
control such as is obtained by the use of circuit breakers. A circuit breaker
can make or break a circuit either manually or automatically under all
conditions viz., no-load, full-load and short-circuit conditions. This
characteristic of the circuit breaker has made it a very useful equipment for
switching and protection of various parts of the power system. In this
chapter, we shall deal with the various types of circuit breakers and their
increasing applications as control devices. A circuit breaker is a piece of
equipment which can
(i) make or break a circuit either manually or by remote control under
normal conditions
(ii) break a circuit automatically under fault conditions
(iii) make a circuit either manually or by remote control under fault
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Circuit Breakers

Operating principle:
A circuit breaker essentially consists of fixed and moving contacts, called
electrodes. Under normal operating conditions, these contacts remain
closed and will not open automatically until and unless the system
becomes faulty. Of course, the contacts can be opened manually or by
remote control whenever desired. When a fault occurs on any part of the
system, the trip coils of the circuit breaker get energised and the moving
contacts are pulled apart by some mechanism, thus opening the circuit.
When the contacts of a circuit breaker are separated under fault
conditions, an arc is struck between them. The current is thus able to
continue until the discharge ceases. The production of arc not only
delays the current interruption process but it also generates enormous
heat which may cause damage to the system or to the circuit breaker
itself. Therefore, the main problem in a circuit breaker is to extinguish
the arc within the shortest possible time so that heat generated by it may
not reach a dangerous value.
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Circuit Breakers

Classification of Circuit Breakers:

There are several ways of classifying the circuit breakers. However, the
most general way of classification is on the basis of medium used for arc
extinction. The medium used for arc extinction is usually oil, air, sulphur
hexafluoride (SF6) or vacuum. Accordingly, circuit breakers may be
classified into :
(i) Oil circuit breakers which employ some insulating oil (e.g., transformer
oil) for arc extinction.
(ii) Air-blast circuit breakers in which high pressure air-blast is used for
extinguishing the arc.
(iii) Sulphur hexafluroide circuit breakers in which sulphur hexafluoride
(SF6) gas is used for arc extinction.
(iv) Vacuum circuit breakers in which vacuum is used for arc extinction.
Each type of circuit breaker has its own advantages and disadvantages. In
the following sections, we shall discuss the construction and working of
these circuit breakers with special emphasis on the way the arc extinction is
facilitated.
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Circuit Breakers

Oil Circuit Breakers:

In such circuit breakers, some insulating oil (e.g., transformer oil) is used
as an arc quenching medium. The contacts are opened under oil and an arc
is struck between them. The heat of the arc evaporates the surrounding oil
and dissociates it into a substantial volume of gaseous hydrogen at high
pressure. The hydrogen gas occupies a volume about one thousand times
that of the oil decomposed. The oil is, therefore, pushed away from the arc
and an expanding hydrogen gas bubble surrounds the arc region and
adjacent portions of the contacts (See Fig. 1). The arc extinction is
facilitated mainly by two processes. Firstly, the hydrogen gas has high heat
conductivity and cools the arcthus aiding the de-ionisation of the medium
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Circuit Breakers

Advantages of Oil Circuit Breaker:

The advantages of oil as an arc quenching medium are :
(i) It absorbs the arc energy to decompose the oil into gases which have
excellent cooling properties.
(ii) It acts as an insulator and permits smaller clearance between live
conductors and earthed components.
(iii) The surrounding oil presents cooling surface in close proximity to the
arc.
Disadvantages of Oil Circuit
Breaker:
The disadvantages of oil as an arc quenching medium are :
(i) It is inflammable and there is a risk of a fire.
(ii) It may form an explosive mixture with air
(iii) The arcing products (e.g., carbon) remain in the oil and its quality
deteriorates with successive operations. This necessitates periodic
checking and replacement of oil.
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Circuit Breakers

Low Oil Circuit Breakers

A low oil circuit breaker employs solid materials for insulation purposes
and uses a small quantity of oil which is just sufficient for arc extinction.
As regards quenching the arc, the oil behaves identically in bulk as well as
low oil circuit breaker. By using suitable arc control devices, the arc
extinction can be further facilitated in a low oil circuit breaker.

Construction: Fig 1: shows the cross section of a single phase low oil
circuit breaker. There are two compartments separated from each other
but both filled with oil. The upper chamber is the circuit breaking
chamber while the lower one is the supporting chamber. The two
chambers are separated by a partition and oil from one chamber is
prevented from mixing with the other chamber. This arrangement
permits two advantages.
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Circuit Breakers

Advantages of Low Oil Circuit Breaker

A low oil circuit breaker has the following advantages over a bulk oil circuit
breaker:
(i) It requires lesser quantity of oil.
(ii) It requires smaller space.
(iii) There is reduced risk of fire.
(iv) Maintenance problems are reduced.
Disadvantages of Low Oil Circuit Breaker
A low oil circuit breaker has the following disadvantages as compared to a
bulk oil circuit breaker :
(i) Due to smaller quantity of oil, the degree of carbonization is
increased.
(ii) There is a difficulty of removing the gases from the contact space in
time.
(iii) The dielectric strength of the oil deteriorates rapidly due to high
degree of carbonization
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Circuit Breakers

Maintenance of Oil Circuit Breakers

During inspection of the breaker, the following points should be kept in
view :
(i) Check the current carrying parts and arcing contacts. If the burning is
severe, the contacts should be replaced.
(ii) Check the dielectric strength of the oil. If the oil is badly discoloured, it
should be changed or reconditioned. The oil in good condition should
withstand 30 kV for one minute in a standard oil testing cup with 4 mm
gap between electrodes.
(iii) Check the insulation for possible damage. Clean the surface and
remove carbon deposits with a strong and dry fabric.
(iv) Check the oil level.
(v) Check closing and tripping mechanism
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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.
Advantages.
(i) The risk of fire is eliminated.
(ii) The arcing products are completely removed by the blast whereas the oil
deteriorates with successive operations; 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
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Circuit Breakers

disadvantges :
(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.
Sulphur Hexaflouride (SF6) Circuit
In such circuit breakers, sulphur hexaflouride (SF6) gas is used as the arc
Breakers
quenching medium. The SF6 is an electro-negative gas and has a strong
tendency to absorb free electrons. The contacts of the breaker are opened
in a high pressure flow of SF6 gas and an arc is struck between them. The
conducting free electrons in the arc are rapidly captured by the gas to
form relatively immobile negative ions. This loss of conducting electrons
in the arc quickly builds up enough insulation strength to extinguish the
arc. The SF6 circuit breakers have been found to be very effective for high
power and high voltage service.
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Circuit Breakers

Advantages of Sulphur Hexaflouride (SF6) Circuit

Breakers
(i) Due to the superior arc quenching property of SF6, such circuit
breakers have very short arcing time.
(ii) The SF6 circuit breaker gives noiseless operation due to its closed
gas circuit and no exhaust to atmosphere unlike the air blast circuit
breaker
(iii) There is no risk of fire in such breakers because SF6 gas is non-
inflammable.
(iv) There are no carbon deposits so that tracking and insulation
problems are eliminated.
(v) The SF6 breakers have low maintenance cost.
Disadvantages of Sulphur Hexaflouride (SF6) Circuit
Breakers
(i) SF6 breakers are costly due to the high cost of SF6.
(ii) Since SF6 gas has to be reconditioned after every operation of the
breaker, additional equipment is required for this purpose.