Investigation on Breaking Arc in DC High-Power Relays: A Review

Recently, aircraft, spaceflight and new energy industries have been in a period of rapid development. DC high-power relay has also been widespread concerned as a key component in DC power distribution, management and control systems to complete the implementation of breaking, power switching and fault protection and other features. Breaking arc plays a significant role in the DC current interruption that is formed in the interrupting process of DC high power relay. Therefore, the study on arc characteristics and arc erosion is a key issue in improving the reliability and quantifying the estimated electrical lifespan of DC high-power relays. Arc is a basic scientific problem involving the discharge of plasma physics, electromagnetic field, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and other interdisciplinary. Due to some difficulties in experimental and theoretical research, the current understanding of physical mechanism is not yet clear, such as arc erosion and breaking arc characteristics in DC relay switching devices. In this paper, previous simulation and experimental studies on the switching arc phenomenon characteristics and arc erosion in these DC high power relays are reviewed. Moreover, the future development research on switching arc in the switching devices such as DC high power relays is presented.