Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Study of arc by-products in gas-insulated equipment. Final report

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6706742· OSTI ID:6706742
The project objective was to develop a chemical data base for sulfur hexafluoride, SF/sub 6/ decomposition products as generated by electrical discharges within gas-insulated equipment to serve as a basis for unified handling procedures of faulted SF/sub 6/ equipment and disposal of the arc products. An analysis capability was to be developed that could be used by utilities for incipient and actual fault analysis on SF/sub 6/ insulated power equipment. Arced SF/sub 6/ gas and solid samples were generated in test devices which simulate SF/sub 6/ circuit breakers or SF/sub 6/ insulated bus. Actual production hardware and procedures were used for assembly of the test devices. Fault arc currents ranged between 15 kA and 50 kA. Arced SF/sub 6/ samples were obtained and shipped in stainless steel cylinders. Gaseous arc products were analyzed with a combination of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The attained sensitivity is 100 ppM. The major SF/sub 6/ arc products are SOF/sub 2/ and CF/sub 4/. The amount increases with the arc energy. SOF/sub 2/ can effectively be removed by absorber-scrubbers containing soda-lime, activated alumina and molecular sieves. The solid arc products consisted of metal fluorides (AlF/sub 3/ and CuF/sub 2/.2 H/sub 2/O). Airborne dust, collected upon opening of the faulted test section had a size of about 10 micron.
Research Organization:
Gould-Brown Boveri, Greensburg, PA (USA)
OSTI ID:
6706742
Report Number(s):
EPRI-EL-1646
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English