Electric arc protection devices - VAMP - Measurement and control

Electric arc short circuits are rare short circuit in the switchgear where the effect of the explosive increase of pressure and heat can cause a huge in scale equipment damage and risk to the safety of staff. The purpose of electric arc protection is to determine arc resistance and to minimize the burning time of the arc, thereby protecting the equipment and people. Burning time of the arc usually is minimized by excluding current feeding the arc.

The best way to limit the damage caused by electric arc short circuit is to limit the burning time of the arc. Burning time of the arc may be limited by the circuit breaker in which is powered arc. In this way direct and indirect damages would effectively be limited. Burning time of the arc is critical especially when the arc develops during work of the staff with equipment.

Protection devices response time

When using the principle of temporary or logical selectivity ordinary protection cannot provide sufficient speed of protection for short circuit arc. Furthermore, grounding in great resistance and connection to the land can increase the activation of protective relays for connection to the land and lead to the release of the energy of arc. These facts alone represent a significant risk to equipment and people lives.

Standard burning time of an arc must be limited to 100 ms, in order to avoid major damage. Burning time of the arc of about half a second, causing significant damage. The usual total response time when conventional protection for the baseline is about 100 ms, and a power line 400 ms, while using electric arc protection it is about 57 ms. The duration of operation in emergency conditions, in an electric arc significantly reduced when using the electric protection VAMP.

VAMP arc protection offers fast and reliable device to improve safety. Such devices work in nearly 10,000 electric systems worldwide that provide a single-zone arc protection, electric arc protection system with multiple zones.

VAMP system detects the presence of an arc as measuring the defective current and responding to the light of the arc through sensory canals and in case of failure, minimizes the time for burning switching off quickly the current supplying the arc. The unique function of detecting an electric arc adds a new dimension to the overall safety of the installation and the reliability of the protection system.

Benefits Applications