Evaluation of Risk of Failure in High Voltage Circuit Breakers through Fuzzy Approach based on Dynamic Resistance Measurement

Circuit breakers (CBs) play an important role in protection of the components used in power systems such as transformers and generators. Therefore, the condition assessment of CBs are really important. The interruption chamber of high voltage CBs is one of the most prominent part including moving and fix arc and main contacts. The operation of CBs under short circuit currents or the high number operations under rated-current leads to the erosion of contacts due to the high temperature or abrasion. The assessment of this part due to difficulty in direct access to it is a main problem. Dynamic resistance measurement (DRM) is an indirect assessment method of contacts used in HVCB. This paper provides a comprehensive FEM-based simulations via COMSOL to assess the impacts of intentional failures in contacts on DRM profile. Subsequently, it has been attempted to develop a fuzzy method to evaluate the failure risk of CBs. The proposed algorithm has been verified through experimental results.