Electrical switching system

Abstract

An electrical switching device including: a main contact arrangement including a fixed contact and a movable contact, a plurality of splitter plates, each having a loop structure, the splitter plates being coaxially stacked with respect to their loop structure to form a stack of splitter plates, wherein one of the splitter plates of the stack of splitter plates is a first outermost splitter plate and another one of the splitter plates of the stack of splitter plates is a second outermost splitter plate, a first arc runner electrically connected to the second outermost splitter plate and a second arc runner electrically connected to the first outermost splitter plate, the first arc runner and the second arc runner being configured to direct a main arc from the main contact arrangement to the stack of splitter plates to thereby split the main arc into a plurality of secondary arcs between the splitter plates, and a first drive coil electrically connected to the second arc runner and to the movable contact or to the first arc runner and to the fixed contact, wherein the first drive coil has a first force increasing coil portion extending in parallel with the first arc runner in a direction towards the splitter plates such that the first force increasing coil portion is able to carry current in the same direction as and in parallel with a main current flow in the first arc runner to increase the magnetic field to thereby increase the Lorenz force applied to the main arc between the first arc runner and the second arc runner, when energised, is configured to create a blowing magnetic field in the stack of splitter plates, causing the secondary arcs to move circumferentially along the loops structures of the splitter plates.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.