Circuit breaker operational health assessment via condition monitoring data

This paper presents a practical approach to evaluation of the operational health and reliability of circuit breakers in substations. Motivated by the recent failure surveys conducted by CIGRE working groups, circuit breaker condition data, obtained by monitoring critical parameters such as operational timings, tank gas pressure and temperature, mechanism traveling time and speed, etc., is used to evaluate the proposed health index. The proposed measure would help identify the transmission lines available for switching actions from the circuit breaker reliability view point. The proposed health index also provides a valuable input for substation maintenance personnel. The applicability of the proposed methodology is explored and validated using the actual circuit breaker condition data collected in the field.