Xiangyang Ye

CFD Simulation of Transonic Flow in High-Voltage Circuit Breaker

A high-voltage circuit breaker is an indispensable piece of equipment in the electric transmission and distribution systems. Transonic flow typically occurs inside breaking chamber during the current interruption, which determines the insulating characteristics of gas. Therefore, accurate compressible flow simulations are required to improve the prediction of the breakdown voltages in various test duties of high-voltage circuit breakers. In this work, investigation of the impact of the solvers on the prediction capability of the breakdown voltages in capacitive switching is presented. For this purpose, a number of compressible nozzle flow validation cases have been presented. The investigation is then further extended for a real high-voltage circuit breaker geometry. The correlation between the flow prediction accuracy and the breakdown voltage prediction capability is identified.

Multiobjective Optimization and CFD Simulation for a High-Voltage Circuit Breaker

Computational fluid dynamics has been coupled with an optimization algorithm to design a crucial component in a high-voltage circuit breaker (CB). The multiobjective optimization has been used to search for an optimum design for two switching cases simultaneously, revealing potential tradeoffs or conflicts. The use and applicability of response surface methodology (RSM) is presented.

CFD Simulation of Temperature Rise in High-Voltage Circuit Breakers

High-voltage circuit breakers (HVCB) interrupt short-circuit currents to protect electrical networks and act as electric conductor carrying the nominal current without producing impermissible temperature rise in any of its components. In the present work, the coupling of computational fluid dynamics with computational electromagnetics is presented for predicting the temperature rise in HVCB. Predictions are compared with measurement and design changes for the improvement are discussed.