Approach to Mechanism Interpretation of Arc Voltage Rise by Polymer Cylinder Installation in Silica-Sand

This report describes experimental results on DC interruption for three experiments: (1) silica-sand filling (designation: Silica), (2) polymer cylinder installation without silica-sand filling (designation: P5-Air), and (3) polymer cylinder installation with silica-sand filling (designation: P5-Silica). The shape of polymer cylinder was fixed at an inner diameter of 5 mm and a length of 15 mm. A damping DC with a peak current of 750 A was supplied to an established experimental system. A current and a voltage between electrodes were measured during the current supplying period. As experimental results, the arc resistance between electrodes were measured to be 0.15 Ω for Silica, 0.20 Ω for P5-Air and 0.56 Ω for P5-Silica at a peak current, respectively. This implies that silica-sand confined in the polymer cylinder effectively contributes to the arc voltage rise at around a peak current. During a current decaying periods, the arc resistance for P5-Air was measured to be almost same value for P5-Silica. This also implies that an interaction between the polymer and the arc rises the arc resistance during the current decaying period.