Influence of high-frequency high voltage impulse conditioning on inrush current interruption phenomena

The objective of this paper is to investigate the influence of a high-frequency high voltage impulses conditioning on the inrush current interruption phenomena with considering the inrush currents. In this paper, six 7.2 kV vacuum interrupters (VIs) were used. First of all, six VIs were all conditioned by a several hundreds of batches of high-frequency high voltage impulses. Then the capacitive current switching tests were carried out on the VIs at the inrush currents 2 kA and 5 kA, respectively. The experimental results showed that there were two different types of the inrush current interruption phenomena after the high frequency voltage impulses conditioning, which was different with the inrush current interruption without conditioning. The inrush current interruption type I and II were referred to the interruption phenomena occurred in the prestrike process and the bouncing process, respectively. After the high frequency voltage impulses conditioning, it was found that the occurrence frequency, the maximum number of interruptions and the duration of the inrush current interruption type I could decreased significantly. The inrush current interruption type II might be initiated by the high frequency voltage impulses conditioning. The occurrence frequency of the inrush current interruption type II significantly reduced with the inrush current increasing.