Introduction to the Development History of High Voltage Vacuum Circuit Breakers

2024-10-23 00:15:38

High voltage Vacuum Circuit Breakers originated in the last century, which is the late 19th century. Its idea was first put forward by an American. Because this plan provided a concept and idea to the United States at that time, this idea was highly valued by inventors at that time. Twenty years later, Foga Corporation in Sweden invented a conceptual "vacuum switch" using this planning concept. In the next six years, the company will announce to the public that this product may indeed be able to achieve vacuum circuit breaking. However, even if it has the function of breaking, this product cannot be produced under the conditions at that time. Due to the small possibility of breaking measured at that time and the unknown constraints of vacuum technology conditions and raw material selection, vacuum Circuit breakers were still just a concept at that time and could not be truly put into production and application. Due to the impact of World War I and World War II, the development and exploration of vacuum circuit breakers had to take a buffer. Finally, in the 1950s, the United States began a batch of switches that could block the function of capacitor banks. Although their breaking current function was only 4000 amperes, it was already very difficult with the technological level at that time. Due to significant breakthroughs in the fabrication of vacuum materials and research on the structure of vacuum switch contacts, after 10 years of unremitting efforts, scientists have finally developed a vacuum circuit breaker capable of producing 15 kV high voltage and a breaking current of 12.5 kA. In less than 5 years, they have successfully developed a vacuum circuit breaker with 15 kV, 26 kV, and 31.5 kV. Subsequently, vacuum circuit breakers officially stepped onto the high platform of high-voltage and high-capacity power systems, and it was precisely because of their sophisticated functions and circuit breaking capabilities that high-voltage vacuum circuit breakers truly gained a reputation in the world. By the 1980s, the function of vacuum circuit breakers had been upgraded to 100 kiloamperes.

The development and production of high-voltage vacuum circuit breakers in China began in 1958. It was not until 1960 that this product was finally developed. Although it is a batch product, it actually has a short-circuit function of 15 kV and a breaking capacity of 600 A. At that time, China's heavy industry was still in its infancy, and according to the national conditions of our country at that time, products that could achieve such functions were indeed appropriate and good. Not long after that, countrymen unexpectedly developed a three-phase vacuum circuit breaker with 10kV and 1.5kA section capacity by themselves, which made many countries at that time dumbfounded. After 1969, China's Huaguang Electronic Tube Factory and Xi'an High Voltage Electrical Equipment Research Institute developed 10 kV, 2 kA single-phase fast vacuum switches. Since then, China has been able to independently develop and produce various standard vacuum switches.

High voltage vacuum circuit breakers are classified into many grades by experts, and generally speaking, low-voltage types are often used as explosion-proof electrical devices.