The Finite Element Analysis of a New Permanent Magnet Actuator for Vacuum Circuit Breakers

This paper presents a novel permanent magnetic actuator (PMA) used for vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs). The proposed PMA has a bistable structure, and the employed permanent magnets are embedded inside the circuit breaker in such a way that the losses and overall size of the structure are less than that of the conventional PMA. The performance indices, such as the opening and closing time, the average opening and closing velocities, and the maximum currents of the opening and closing coils, of the proposed PMA have been considerably improved than that of the conventional PMA. Both steady state and dynamic characteristics of the conventional and proposed PMAs are simulated in ANSYS Maxwell 2D/3D software. The simulation results show that both PMAs meet the requirements of the VCB for the considered voltage level.