Pneumatic puffer circuit breaker

Abstract

A pneumatic puffer circuit breaker for high tension stations comprises a sealed chamber filled with a highly dielectric gas, a fixed main contact (18, 39) and at least one fixed arcing contact (9, 14, 16) disposed as co-axial cylinders and deliminiting a first volume (12). A fixed blast nozzle (24) delimits in conjunction with the fixed arcing contact an outlet passage (12A) for gas from said first volume (12). A tubular moving main contact (29) and a tubular moving arcing contact (15) are disposed coaxially with each other and with the fixed contacts, and a cylinder (10) is mounted to co-operate with the fixed main contact during circuit interruption to compress the gas in said first volume. Said cylinder has a spring (11) urging it towards a drive member (20, 31) mounted to move with said moving contacts. The cylinder includes latching means (19) for preventing the cylinder from moving, during a circuit interruption operation, in a direction other than that which tends to compress the gas in said first volume. The purpose of said latching means is to prevent back pressure from an energetic arc pushing back the cylinder, thereby creating suction instead blast from said first volume.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.