Exposed high voltage outdoor disconnector for operation under icing conditions

Abstract

An outdoor grounding section switch has a female contact and a male contact at the end of a grounding blade that can be driven. The female contact is constituted by at least one hollow tubular thimble (11, 15), housed inside a vertical tubular insulator (3) that is closed at its top end and open at a bottom end. The male contact (25) is a vertical cylinder penetrating into the insulator (3) and the thimble during closing. The open end of the insulator (3) is equipped with a metal part (14), the inside of which is provided with a plurality of radially-directed lugs (14A), facing the periphery of the male contact vertical cylinder and stopping short of the vertical cylinder to break ice accumulating off the end of the male contact during section switch closure. A quick-break vacuum switch is connected in parallel with the ends of the thimble (11, 15) controlled by the displacement of the section switch male contact through an over center, quick-break mechanism so that the quick-break vacuum switch opens after the male and female contacts of the section switch separate from each other by an isolation distance.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.