Commutating Circuit Breaker

摘要

A commutating circuit breaker that progressively inserts increasing resistance into a circuit via physical motion of a shuttle that is linked into the circuit by at least one set of sliding electrical contacts on the shuttle that connect the power through the moving shuttle to a sequence of different resistive paths with increasing resistance; the motion of the shuttle can be either linear or rotary. At no point are the sliding stator electrodes separated from the matching stationary stator electrodes so as to generate a powerful arc, which minimizes damage to the sliding stator electrodes. Instead, the current is commutated from one resistive path to the next with small enough changes in resistance at each step that arcing is suppressed. The variable resistance can either be within the moving shuttle, or the shuttle can comprise a commutating shuttle that moves the current over a series of stationary resistors.

主权项

1. A commutating circuit breaker for use in an electrical circuit that defines an electrical path wherein current flows through the commutating circuit breaker when it is in an on state, the commutating circuit breaker comprising:
a stator having one or more stator electrodes; a shuttle having one or more shuttle electrodes, the shuttle movable with respect to the stator and configured such that during such motion the shuttle electrodes slide against the stator electrodes; wherein at least one of the stator and shuttle has an increasing resistivity along its length, with a higher graded resistivity on at least a trailing edge that comprises a portion of one electrode that last touches another electrode when the shuttle moves relative to the stator; and a launching system arranged to move the shuttle relative to the stator between an on state position where the commutating circuit breaker presents a relatively low electrical resistance in the electrical circuit, and an open position where the commutating circuit breaker presents a very high electrical resistance in the electrical circuit; wherein as the shuttle moves between the on state position and the open position, the current flowing through the commutating circuit breaker is shunted into paths of increasing resistance.