Table 1. Characteristics of the SF6 and vacuum current interrupting technologies.
| SF6 Circuit Breakers | Vacuum Circuit Breakers | ||
| Criteria | Puffer Circuit Breaker | Self-pressuring circuit-breaker | Contact material-Chrome-Copper |
| Operating energy requirements | Operating Energy requirements are high, because the mechanism must supply the energy needed to compress the gas. | Operating Energy requirements are low, because the mechanism must move only relatively small masses at moderate speed, over short distances. The mechanism does not have to provide the energy to create the gas flow | Operating energy requirements are low, because the mechanism must move only relatively small masses at moderate speed, over very short distances. |
| Arc Energy | Because of the high conductivity of the arc in the SF6 gas, the arc energy is low. (arc voltage is between 150 and 200V.) | Because of the very low voltage across the metal vapour arc, energy is very low. (Arc voltage is between 50 and 100V.) | |
| Contact Erosion | Due to the low energy the contact erosion is small. | Due to the very low arc energy, the rapid movement of the arc root over the contact and to the fact that most of the metal vapour re-condenses on the contact, contact erosion is extremely small. | |
| Arc extinguishing media | The gaseous medium SF6 possesses excellent dielectric and arc quenching properties. After arc extinction, the dissociated gas molecules recombine almost completely to reform SF6. This means that practically no loss/consumption of the quenching medium occurs. The gas pressure can be very simply and permanently supervised. This function is not needed where the interrupters are sealed for life. | No additional extinguishing medium is required. A vacuum at a pressure of 10-7 bar or less is an almost ideal extinguishing medium. The interrupters are ‘sealed for life’ so that supervision of the vacuum is not required. | |
| Switching behavior in relation to current chopping | The pressure build-up and therefore the flow of gas is independent of the value of the current. Large or small currents are cooled with the same intensity. Only small values of high frequency, transient currents, if any, will be interrupted. The de-ionization of the contact gap proceeds very rapidly, due to the electro-negative characteristic of the SF6 gas and the arc products. | The pressure build-up and therefore the flow of gas is dependent upon the value of the current to be interrupted. Large currents are cooled intensely, small currents gently. High frequency transient currents will not, in general, be interrupted. The de-ionization of the contact gap proceeds very rapidly due to the electro-negative characteristic of the SF6 gas and the products. | No flow of an ‘extinguishing’ medium needed to extinguish the vacuum arc. An extremely rapid de-ionization of the contact gap, ensures the interruption of all currents whether large or small. High frequency transient currents can be interrupted. The value of the chopped current is determined by the type of contact material used. The presence of chrome in the contact alloy with vacuum also. |
| No. of short-circuit operation | 10—50 | 10—50 | 30—100 |
| No. full load operation | 5000—10000 | 5000—10000 | 10000—20000 |
| No. of mechanical operation | 5000—20000 | 5000—20000 | 10000—30000 |
Bacaan penuh di http://www.csanyigroup.com/comparison-between-vacuum-and-sf6-circuit-breakerComparison of the SF6 And Vacuum Technologies
The most important characteristics of the SF6 gas and vacuum-circuit breakers, i.e., of SF6 gas and vacuum as arc-extinguishing media are summarized in Table-1.
In the case of the SF6 circuit-breaker, interrupters which have reached the limiting number of operations can be overhauled and restored to ‘as new’ condition. However, practical experience has shown that under normal service conditions the SF6 interrupter never requires servicing throughout its lifetime. For this reason, some manufacturers no longer provide facilities for the user to overhaul the circuit-breaker, but have adopted a ‘sealed for life’ design as for the vacuum-circuit breaker.
The operating mechanisms of all types of circuit-breakers require servicing, some more frequently than others depending mainly on the amount of energy they have to provide. For the vacuum-circuit breaker the service interval lies between 10,000 and 20,000 operations. For the SF6 designs the value varies between 5,000 and 20,000 whereby, the lower value applies to the puffer circuit-breaker for whose operation, the mechanism must deliver much more energy.
The actual maintenance requirements of the circuit-breaker depend upon its service duty, i.e. on the number of operations over a given period of time and the value of current interrupted. Based on the number of operations given in the previous section, it is obvious that SF6 and vacuum circuit-breakers used in public supply and /or industrial distribution systems will, under normal circumstances, never reach the limits of their summated breaking current value. Therefore, the need for the repair or replacement of an interrupter will be a rare exception and in this sense these circuit-breakers can be considered maintenance-free. Service or maintenance requirements are therefore restricted to routine cleaning of external surfaces and the checking and lubrication of the mechanism, including the trip-linkages and auxiliary switches. In applications which require a very high number of circuit-breaker operations e.g. for arc furnace duty or frequently over the SF6 design, due to its higher summated-breaking current capability. In such cases it is to be recommended that the estimation of circuit-breaker maintenance costs be given some consideration and that these be included in the evaluation along with the initial, capital costs.
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