Thermal Analyses for a Simplified Medium-Voltage Switchgear: Numerical and Experimental Benchmark Studies

Abstract

Present study reports experimental and computational results obtained for a switchgear, where its critical components such as busbars, and tulip contacts are numerically modeled. In the experiment, thermocouples are used to measure the temperature at several locations of the switchgear at operating condition. One-way coupled EMAG and CFD computations are performed to obtain eddy current losses first, then the temperature and velocity distributions are obtained for the natural convection in and out of the model that is induced by the losses. Comparison of the obtained temperature distributions show that the experimental and computational results are in similar trend in general. In order to understand the causes of local discrepancies in the results, it is considered to conduct computations on a high performance computing environment for a more realistically modelled electrical components.