Designing a Permanent Magnetic Actuator for Vacuum Circuit Breakers Using the Taguchi Method and Dynamic Characteristic Analysis
Permanent magnetic actuators (PMAs) are usually used for vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) due to their fast linear motion and large holding force. As the holding force becomes larger, so does the current capacity of the circuit breaker. Producing a large holding force with the same PMA size is therefore important in PMA design. This paper presents a design method of a PMA for VCBs. To attain the desired holding force under the restriction of the PMA size, most of the influential PMA yoke design parameters were obtained by the Taguchi method. PMA dynamic characteristics were simulated considering the electromagnetic characteristics, the PMA driving circuit, and the mechanical components connected to the PMA output shaft. Experiments were performed to validate the proposed design method, and the experimental results were compared with the simulation results.
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics