Modeling and Simulation of Low Voltage Arcs

Modeling and Simulation of Low Voltage Arcs is an attempt to improve the physical understanding, mathematical modeling and numerical simulation of the electric arcs that are found during current interruptions in low voltage circuit breakers. An empirical description is gained by refined electrical measures and fiber optics based imaging. Ways to assess with a graded scale the interruption performance of a circuit breaker are developed. A theoretical review of the arc plasma physics allows to gain an insight in the governing phenomenon, namely the balance between particle energy gain from the electric field and particle energy redistribution through collisions. The elaboration of this idea to a more abstract level of modeling detail allows to develop a new black box model, based on non equilibrium theory and with increased realism, as well as to address the problem with predictive purposes by means of a computational, multi-physics approach.