Current limiting shunt for current limiting circuit breakers
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorDavid Arnold
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A compact current limiting circuit breaker is equipped with a current limiting shunt for effective over-current circuit interruption. The circuit breaker trip unit responds to long time, short time and instantaneous over-current conditions by opening a set of contacts to isolate the protected circuit. Upon contact separation an arc is drawn, with the endpoints of the arc being initially rooted on the pair of open contacts. Further opening of the contacts commutates the arc into the current limiting shunt to redirect the current away from the trip unit and suppress the arcing current until the circuit breaker contacts are sufficiently open to isolate the protected circuit.
Claims12
A compact current limiting circuit breaker comprising:
- a circuit breaker housing;
- a first contact arm having a first contact and a line strap having a second contact arranged within said circuit breaker housing for transfer of current through a protected circuit;
- an operating mechanism within said circuit breaker housing arranged for separation of said first and second contacts upon occurrence of an overcurrent condition in said protected circuit;
- a trip unit within said circuit breaker housing for articulating said operating mechanism for separation of said first and second contacts to thereby create arc current between said first and second contacts upon occurrence of said overcurrent condition;
- and
- a polymer current limiting element having an arc runner arranged proximate said second contact for commutating said arc current into a shunt current path through said current limiting element for rapid suppression of said arc current.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.