CFD Analysis and Molecular Kinetics in a Supercritical CO2 Circuit Breaker
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Metzler, Joy
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Abstract
In this work, the behavior of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) at high pressures is investigated in regards to its arc quenching capabilities to suppress reignition in high-voltage circuit breakers. scCO2 is a favorable replacement for the current SF6 gas, which produces toxic byproducts. SF6 contributes heavily to the global warming crisis, and it is paramount to find a more environmentally conscious alternative. One possibility is scCO2, which has a comparable dielectric strength to SF6 and shows promise in arc quenching applications; however, the behavior of scCO2 is not as well researched as that of SF6, leading to a critical gap in knowledge needed to implement this change. To bridge this gap, a preliminary investigation of scCO2 was done using a novel Particle-In-Cell (PIC) solver approach as opposed to a more classic, continuum flow approach. This work presents the initial results from the simulation program Charge Plus[1], developed by Electro-Magnetic Applications Inc. (EMA3D®). Charge Plus is a Particle-In-Cell (PIC) solver that, rather than using fluid properties, instead utilizes reaction probabilities to track macroparticles representing the flow of species in the simulation. While a continuum flow solver is a suitable approach to handle the initial quenching of the arc, the PIC method is particularly suited to answering this work’s overarching question of whether restrike (or reignition) will occur due to its leverage of molecular kinetics, as restrike is largly a molecular kinetics problem rather than a thermodynamics problem. Through a series of parametric studies, it was determined that scCO2 shows promise preventing arc restrike, but some numerical instabilities and a lack of validation data prevents this work from reaching a conclusive answer to the objective. However, significant progress has been made in building and testing a working model not only for scCO2 but also for a nozzle configuration.
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2024-12-08
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