An Influence of Ambient Temperature on Spring Operating Mechanisms in Serving High Voltage Circuit Breaker

A motor-energizing spring operating mechanism is prevalently mounted in high-voltage circuit breakers (CBs), compared to a hydraulic, pneumatic, electromagnetic, or motor operating mechanism. The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of ambient temperature on the characteristics of a spring operating mechanism. The test temperature ranges from - 30 to 40 °C, stepped by 10 °C. The operating mechanism is arranged in an environmental test chamber and maintained for 2 to 5.5 hours for each test temperature, respectively. And then followed by 30 opening and closing operations in atmosphere conditions at room temperature. Test results show that the average opening and closing times of 30 operations present different tendencies, i.e. the average opening time rises with the rising of test temperature, and the closing time decays, inversely. The deviation of the opening and closing operation characteristics significantly increases with the decrease in the ambient temperature.