Analysis and Vibration Behavior of a Medium Voltage Spring Operated Switch Gear Mechanism used for Circuit Breaker

In recent years, considerable attention has been given to the analysis of flexible mechanisms. For mechanisms which operate at high speeds, the inertial forces become so large and they cannot be ignored and the mechanism members undergo considerable deformation. Under these situations the rigid body assumption is no longer valid and hence the need arises for consideration of the flexibilities of the members of the mechanism. This paper investigates dynamic response of a spring operated mechanism of a 69kilovolt SF6 (Sulphur hexa-Fluoride) circuit breaker during its opening operation. In the present work, a spring operated mechanism is analyzed using the multi body simulation. The kinematic synthesis of the mechanism considering its links to be rigid is derived. In kinematic analysis the velocity and acceleration of each link is calculated and their responses are plotted with the time during opening operation of the mechanism. This method is particularly important in analyzing the dynamics of complicated .mechanisms. The dynamic response of the circuit breaker with different spring constants was studied and its effect on the breaking time was also presented. The switchgear mechanism’s link dimensions are verified by performing the mechanism motion simulation by using ADAMS software. The proto type model of the switch gear mechanism is fabricated and tested for studying the dynamic response of the links in the mechanism for its operation. The vibration characteristics by using LABVIEW software with the aid of FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) analyzer are presented.