The Influence of Contact Materials and Chamber Wall Material on the Migration and the Splitting of the Arc in Extinction Chambers

In deion arc chambers it is necessary for good extinction that the arc leaves the contacts in time and is split into series arcs. The time between contact opening and the start of arc migration is strongly dependent on the contact material. It affects the formation of plasma streams, which initiate arc migration. Further factors are magnetic blast and current, The number of series arcs around current zero depends, beside other parameters, on the material of the chamber walls. It can be significantly increased by gassing wall material in the contact region.