Numerical Simulation of Post-arc Current in Vacuum Circuit Breakers based on PIC-MCC and CTM

Reliable simulation of the post-arc current in vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) is critical for an in-depth understanding of their dielectric recovery process. The widely used continuous transition model (CTM) fails to capture the dynamic behavior of charged particles in the contact gap under certain conditions. A novel method that synergizes the PIC-MCC (Particle-In-Cell and Monte Carlo Collision) with the CTM has been developed to calculate the post-arc current, offering both accuracy and detailed spatial and temporal distributions of the plasma parameters. Reasonable agreement has been demonstrated between the simulation results and measured post-arc current (PAC) trace.