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Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A (Applied Physics & Engineering)  2009, Vol. 10 Issue (9): 1305-1312    DOI: 10.1631/jzus.A0820724
Materials Engineering     
A gravity heat pipe for high voltage vacuum interrupter
Xiao-ling YU, Zhi-yuan LIU, Quan-ke FENG, Yi-jiang WEI, Ji-mei WANG, Xiang-jun ZENG
School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China; School of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
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Abstract  To enhance nominal current of high voltage vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs), a gravity heat pipe was proposed to replace stationary conducting rod of a high voltage vacuum interrupter. The heat pipe is composed of two coaxis tubes: the external tube is made of oxygen-free copper and the inner tube is made of stainless steel. The bottom end of the inner stainless steel tube is connected to the external copper tube by holes. Transient and static thermal performance of the heat pipe was measured, and the thermal resistance of it was compared with that of a solid copper rod with the same dimensions. Experimental results showed that thermal resistance of the heat pipe was about 1/3 of that of the copper rod, and it decreased slightly with the rising of the input heat flux. 3D thermal simulation on a 126 kV/2000 A single break VCB was done to compare the thermal performance between the proposed gravity heat pipe and the copper rod serving as the stationary conducting rod of the vacuum interrupter. Simulation results revealed that in the heat pipe case, the maximum temperature between contacts was 67 °C lower than that in the copper rod case.

Key wordsHeat pipe      Vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs)      Vacuum interrupters      Nominal current      Thermal simulation     
Received: 08 April 2008     
CLC:  TM561.2  
Cite this article:

Xiao-ling YU, Zhi-yuan LIU, Quan-ke FENG, Yi-jiang WEI, Ji-mei WANG, Xiang-jun ZENG. A gravity heat pipe for high voltage vacuum interrupter. Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A (Applied Physics & Engineering), 2009, 10(9): 1305-1312.

URL:

http://www.zjujournals.com/xueshu/zjus-a/10.1631/jzus.A0820724     OR     http://www.zjujournals.com/xueshu/zjus-a/Y2009/V10/I9/1305

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