• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.715-722
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• 1998

A large electric system of a vacuum circuit breaker(VCB) has been studied for the electro-thermal analysis by finite element methods. Since the heat generation in VCB causes not only energy loss but deterioration of the VCB system with oxidization of parts, the overheating of the system must be prevented. For the analysis, a finite element formulation is derived for both electric analysis and thermal analysis that are coupled together. Two sets of formulations are uncoupled after finite dimensional approximation. First, the electric potential is obtained for the entire field and scaled to the given electric current. The electric field obtained is then used to calculate the heat generation in the VCB system including contacts and connections for the calculation of the temperature distribution in the entire domain. The finite element analysis is carried out to study the effect of shapes and locations of contacts and connections. From the results, the existing VCB has been modified to enhance its capacity with reduction of heat generation and temperature elevation.