Studies on the use of heat pipes in medium voltage switchgears

Conference: ICEC 2014 - The 27th International Conference on Electrical Contacts
06/22/2014 - 06/26/2014 at Dresden, Deutschland

Proceedings: ICEC 2014

Pages: 6Language: englishTyp: PDF

Personal VDE Members are entitled to a 10% discount on this title

Authors:
Kitzrow, Gerd; Wiebel, Wolfgang; Rogler, Ralf-Dieter (Faculty of Electrical Engineering, HTW Dresden, Dresden, Germany)
Schoenemann, Thomas (Institute of Electrical Power Engineering / Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology, University of Rostock / INP Greifswald e.V., Rostock - Greifswald, Germany)

Abstract:
The use of heat pipes in switchgears has been investigated in three steps: 1) along the conductor (to reduce temperature rise of hot spots): - connected with cooler points on the conductor 2) transverse the conductor (to reduce temperature rise of hot spots): - connected with enclosure or ambient temperature 3) heat exchanger (to reduce temperature rise of whole switchgear): - connected with ambient temperature Studies of applications have shown that various criteria must be observed. Cases 1) and 3) can be realized by commercially available heat pipes. For the other application (2)) heat pipes have been developed to ensure the heat transport to keep off the medium voltage and to minimize the contact resistances. All experimental results were also calculated by using the thermal network, thus conclusions on using heat pipes in other switchgears can be drawn easily. An adjustable reduction in the temperature rise up to 50 % is possible. This can be used to: - increase the current carrying capacity, - prolong lifetime of switchgears, - save copper by reducing the cross section of the conductors or - provide a homogenization of the temperature distribution along the conductor.