Arc extinction characteristics in power supply frequencies from 50 Hz to 1 MHz

Department of System Design Engineering, Keio University, Yokohama-shi Kanagawa-ken, 223-8522, Japan

Corresponding author: sawa@sd.keio.ac.jp

Received: 2 December 2008
Accepted: 4 February 2010
Published online: 26 February 2010

Abstract

It is well-known that arcing phenomena at the break of contacts affect seriously the reliability and lifetime of contacts. Therefore, many papers have reported arc duration, arc extinction current and other characteristics. Recently, in mobile communication application an electro-mechanical switch is said to be superior to a semiconductor switch in insertion loss and isolation, and a RF (radio frequency) MEMS relay has been intensively developed. Based on the above background it is one of important research topics how the frequency of interrupted current affects the characteristics of breaking arc. However, there are few papers on that topic. In this paper the effect of frequency on arc characteristics is investigated in range of the frequency of interrupted current from 50 Hz to 1 MHz. Consequently the followings can be made clear. At the interruption of peak current 2 A arc extinguishes in terms of arc characteristics and circuit conditions up to the frequency of 200 Hz. Above 200 Hz the arc extinguishes at current zero. The current zero extinction takes place up to 500 kHz. Therefore, arc duration decreases with high frequencies and the contact damage caused by arc is reduced with frequency. However, at frequencies higher than 600 kHz an arc is re-ignited after the current zero and failed to extinguish.