Experimental study of the switching arc behaviour in a transverse magnetic field in vacuum

A diffuse vacuum arc of a sinusoidal half-wave current with amplitude of 500 A and frequency of 28 Hz was influenced by a transverse magnetic field up to 150 mT, produced in a special coil arrangement by the same current. The arc burned in a mechanically opened contact system with parameters according to a low-voltage vacuum switch. The motion of the arc and ion current parameters were observed with the aim of evaluating how known phenomena from the literature criteria were fulfilled in the reported conditions. The results show that the Lorentz-force is the dominant factor of the arc behaviour and that the influence of other quantities, e.g. Hall field, have rather weak importance in the reported conditions