• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.78-84
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• 2022

An air circuit breaker (ACB) is an electrical protection device that interrupts abnormal fault currents that result from overloads or short circuits in a low-voltage power distribution line. The ACB consists of a main circuit part for current flow, mechanism part for the opening and closing operation of movable conductors, and arc-extinguishing part for arc extinction during the breaking operation. The driving mechanism of the ACB is a spring energy charging type. The faster the contact opening speed of the movable conductors during the opening process, the better the breaking performance. However, there is a disadvantage that the durability of mechanism decreases in inverse proportion to the use of a spring capable of accumulating high energy to configure the breaking speed faster. Therefore, to simultaneously satisfy the breaking performance and mechanical endurance of the ACB, its driving mechanism must be optimized. In this study, a dynamic model of the ACB was developed using the MDO(Mechanism Dynamics Option) module of CREO, which is widely used in multibody dynamics analysis. To improve the opening velocity, the Taguchi design method was applied to optimize the design parameters of an ACB with many linkages. In addition, to evaluate the improvement in the operating characteristics, the simulation and experimental results were compared with the MDO model and improved prototype sample, respectively.