The heart of any circuit breaker is its contact structure (current path).

Contacts must be able to continuously carry rated load current and interrupt fault current. Inadequate contact penetration or pressure, misalignment, or pitting will contribute to high contact resistance. High contact resistance will cause the contacts to overheat and possibly fail. This heating will aid in accelerating the deterioration of the insulation system.

Contact resistance testing allows the technician to evaluate the condition of the contacts without seeing them. This eliminates the need for time consuming procedures such as draining and lowering tanks. Contact resistance tests are normally performed using special test sets called micro-ohmmeters. Other commonly used names include, DLRO (Digital Low Resistance Ohmmeter), Ductor (Biddle Trade name) and Millivolt Drop Test Set. The micro-ohmmeter applies a DC current through the current path of the breaker. Normally, the current applied is either 10 amps or 100 amps, depending on the manufacturers recommendations. The voltage drop is then measured and the resistance is displayed on the micro-ohmmeter. The meter reads the contact resistance directly in micro-ohms. Figure 8-1 shows a typical instrument of this type with a digital display. WARNING: Under no conditions should a micro-ohmmeter be connected to an energized circuit.

Acceptable values may be obtained from the manufacturer. If so, use their published values for comparison. If the manufacturers values are not available, then use the 50% rule to compare all three poles of the breaker. The 50% rule can best be applied by taking the following steps:

1. Record micro-ohmmeter readings from all three phases Example: B phase C phase A phase = 20 microhms = = 26 microhms 32 microhms

2. Multiply the lowest reading by 150%. 20 microhms 1.5 = 30 microhms 3. 30 microhms should be the maximum reading for any phase. Therefore, C phase is too high and should be investigated.

In no case should the contact resistance exceed 1.5 times the contact resistance readings when the breaker was new. Many manufacturers are calling for 100 amp contact resistance test on their SF6 gas circuit breakers. For example, Siemens and ABB both require a 100 amp test in Table 8-1. For the ABB type PM, the maximum resistance from bushing terminal to bushing terminal should have the following results.

This discussion will be limited to SF6 Puffer Circuit Breakers because of their popularity. Puffer breakers have two major categories dead-tank and live-tank. Dead-tank breakers range from 15 kV up to 500 kV while live-tank breakers range from 115 kV up to 800 kV.

Power factor test sets are designed to detect the presence of contamination and/or deterioration in an insulation system. The power factor is a calculated value that is derived from the charging current of the specimen and the watts-loss. If a voltage is impressed across a specimen, a current will flow through

it (IT). The fact that insulation resembles a capacitor, most of this current is out-of-phase with the voltage applied and is called a (IC) capacitive component. A balancing network in the test set can be switched into the test circuit so that the capacitive component (IC) is nulled out, leaving the in-phase component (IR). Power factor can then be calculated by dividing the in-phase current (IR) by the total current (IT). However, a power factor test set does not read out in current, it reads out in watts and VA. In this case, the watts would indicate the in-phase component and the VA would represent the amount of charging volt-amperes. Therefore the formula for calculating power factor from the test set is:

When a power factor test is performed on an SF6 circuit breaker, the technician is trying to find any problems or abnormalities in the insulation. By detecting any changes in watts loss, power factor and/or capacitance, a number of problems can be discovered including: Surface or moisture contamination and deterioration operating rods interrupters interrupter supports grading capacitors Corrosive arc by-products Moisture resulting from leaks, procedures after maintenance wet gas and/or poor drying

The technician should keep in mind that in many types of SF6 circuit breakers, the insulation system will have a low charging current. For

this reason, it is important to disconnect and ground all of the circuit breaker bus connections. If this step is ignored, interference from the ungrounded bus and associated standoff insulators will cause interference that can cause inaccurate readings, because the most sensitive current and watt meter ranges cannot be utilized. If the bus is not grounded, it can increase charging current by 50%. If surface leakage is also present, the watts-loss measurement can be over 100% above the true reading. All efforts must be taken to eliminate surface contamination and humidity which can increase losses. Cleaning of all bushings should be performed before testing begins. Guard collars can also be used to help eliminate the effects of surface leakage.

The procedure for testing a dead-tank is very similar to testing an oil circuit breaker with three additional UST measurements with the breaker open to determine the condition of the contact assembly and any associated capacitors. A simplified model of a grounded tank, single-contact, dead-tank breaker is shown in Figure 8-2. It is important to record both the power factor and capacitance for the UST measurements. The test results should be corrected to 20C and compared with similar breaker results. Table 8-2 shows the test procedure recommended by Doble for single-contact, grounded-tank circuit breakers. Tests 1 through 6 are performed in the GST-GROUND mode. GST is a (Grounded-Specimen-Test). This places the low-voltage lead at ground potential and allows the measurement of losses from the energized components to ground. As can be seen in Table 8-2, during test number 1, the losses would be measured in bushing no. 1, support insulator no. 1 and the operating rod. During test number 2, the losses would be measured in bushing no. 2 and support insulator no. 2. In tests 1 through 6 the bushings that are not under test are left floating; however, where extreme interference influences the meter readings, grounding of these bushings can improve test results.

In tests 1 through 6, a high power factor or high losses could be indicative of excessive moisture or arcing by-products which have condensed or deposited on internal insulating members. Verification of moisture can be accomplished with a moisture analyzer or dew point meter. Often times, simply operating the breaker will improve poor power factor measurements that are caused by moisture. In many SF6 breakers, the charging current can be relatively small. In this case, more emphasis should be given to the dielectric loss (MW) rather than the power factor. In addition to the test shown in Table 8-2, additional hot-collar tests should be performed on all bushings. If the bushings have potential or power factor taps, perform a UST test and compare to nameplate values. If the breaker is supplied with gas-filled bushings, hotcollar testing will detect contamination on the inside walls and other common problems such as cracks. If the bushings are large, perform hot-collar testing throughout the length of the bushing in three or more locations, depending on the size of the bushing. The losses can then be compared with similar bushings with identical test under similar atmospheric conditions. A comparison of similar bushings is also advised. If multiple hot-collar test results show high losses, (above 1 milliwatt), further testing can be performed using the single hot-collar method at different sections of the bushing. With the single hot-collar method, the high losses can possibly be localized. Typical watt readings for hot-collar testing, under ideal test conditions, would be approximately 0.01 watts at 10 kV. However, readings above 0.1 watts at 10 kV need to be investigated. High readings may indicate surface moisture. Clean the bushing surface and/or consider the use of guard collars.

If the breaker is equipped with capacitors, (line-to-ground) on the line and/or load side, the power factor and capacitance are recorded and analyzed. If the breaker is equipped with grading capacitors across the contacts, the UST measurements (tests 7, 8 and 9) are important. Tests 7, 8 and 9 should be compared with power factor and capacitance measurements from similar equipment. If the grading capacitors have low values of capacitance, a comparison of watts-loss can be used as a means of comparison for similar equipment. If a capacitor has one or more shorted sections, the capacitance readings will be exceptionally high.

Grounded-tank multi-contact circuit breakers contain additional components that are not stressed in open position testing. This would include: Interrupter support insulators Operating rods that are connected between the interrupters For this reason, in addition to the 9 open breaker tests in Table 8- 2, there are three additional tests that should be performed with the breaker closed, Table 8-3. Bushings should also be tested with the Hot-Collar technique. The key to testing live-tank circuit breakers is to pay attention to the separate tests that must be performed on components such as support column insulators and entrance bushings with their associated capacitors. The support columns typically includes high-pressure air and/or gas along with an operating rod. Figure 8-3 shows a model of a T and Y configuration. Table 8-4 shows the test procedures for measuring: Grading capacitors

 Resistor envelope Interrupter envelope Support insulators Operating rods