Plasma Quenching Effect of Different Environmentally-benign Gases at Atmospheric Pressure using ICTP Technique

The Ar inductively coupled thermal plasma (ICTP) including different environmentally-benign gases was established under the atmospheric pressure condition for the purpose of finding alternative gases for SF6 as an arc quenching medium in circuit breakers. Seven kinds of gases such as N2, O2, Air, CO2, He, H2 and Ar were used as an additional gas to Ar ICTP. The effect of the additional gases on the Ar ICTP was investigated to measure the radiation intensities of Ar lines and the temperature of the plasma. The result revealed that 3% CO2 inclusion remarkably declined the radiation intensity and the temperature while other gas inclusions did not. This may indicate that CO2 has high quenching capability of thermal plasma. Furthermore, a two-dimensional simulation was carried out to obtain the gas flow and temperature distributions in Ar ICTP including the different gases. The results showed that CO2 inclusion caused the similar temperature decaying characteristics to the experiment.