Development of optimized vacuum interrupters through virtual experimentation

One of the pressures exerted by markets on companies is the continuous demand to reduce both product development times and costs. Companies are increasingly researching ways to reduce the design cycles by evaluating and changing the product development processes. The goal of leading companies is to achieve a real competitive advantage that enables them to provide customers with innovative and high quality products in less time. This paper shows how the application of simulation technologies over Vacuum Interrupters can increase the rate of generation, understanding and implementation of new knowledge, by means of a reduction of both the time-to-experiment and the learning cost. Following this approach, simulation can drive product development through knowledge. Virtual experiments are carried out to assess and optimize the Vacuum Interrupter (VI) brazing cycle in a high vacuum furnace, along with the mechanical, magnetic and dielectric behavior of the device, with the objective of matching both industrial and technical requirements, while keeping simulation focused on “quick-and-cheap” knowledge generation.