Identification of Dynamic Characteristics of 12 kV Circuit Breaker under Earthquake Loading

Abstract

History of past earthquakes had demonstrated that structural failures in substations were nonrecoverable unless huge amount of money and man power involves in it. A broad range of substation equipment are especially vulnerable to seismic vibrations and circuit breaker is one among them. Failure in circuit breaker results flow of excessive current in substation components than the respective ratings. Excessive current in substation components cause fire accidents along with power outages. The efficient way to resolve the problem is to analyze and identify the failure points over the earthquake vibrations before installing in the field. This paper discusses in relation to earthquake acceleration amplification of 12 kV circuit breaker used in substations. Shake table experiments are conducted on circuit breaker at higher seismic zone levels. The ground motion amplification obtained from finite element analysis and shake table tests is compared.