Eaton Corporation

Eaton Intelligent Power Limited

Cooper Technologies Company

Gaton Corporation

Eaton Coporation

Eaton Corporaton

Eaton Intelligent Power Limted

Xin Zhou

Brian E Carlson

Andrew Lawrence Gottschalk

Paul Jason Rollmann

Santhosh Kumar Chamarajanagar Govinda Nayaka

Michael Thomas Little

Theodore James Miller

James J Kinsella

Mark Alan Juds

James Jeffery Benke

Robert Michael Slepian

Robert William Mueller

Michael Slepian

Yanjun Feng

Jianyang Liu

James Leo Lagree

Peter J Theisen

William E Beatty, Jr

Gerald Zheng

Robert Stephen Douglass

Christopher John Wieloch

Mark Allan Juds

Jerome Kenneth Hastings

Brad Robert Leccia

Birger Pahl

Wangpei Li

Dale Louis Gass

Engelbert Hetzmannseder

Thomas J Schoepf

Robert Patton Griffin

Bruce Wu

John Joseph Shea

Charles John Luebke

Richard Paul Malingowski

Joseph Charles Zuercher

Steven Zhenghong Chen

Harry James Carlino

Zhi Gao

William Michael Crooks

Christian Ruempler

Ganesh Kumar Balasubramanian

Jack Gu

Huaqiang Li

Eric D Smith

Steven Christopher Schmalz

Kevin Lynn Parker

Steven Andrew Dimino

Robert Yanniello

Edward Louis Wellner

Santosh Kumar Sharma

Javed Abdurrazzaq Mapkar

Kelly Julia McCarthy

David Raymond Rohn

Louis Grant Campbell

Yazhou Wang

Tyler Louis Holp

William Ellsworth Beatty

Naresh Kumar Kodela

Amogh Vilas Kank

Jan J Walker

Joseph C Engel

Matthew Rain Darr

Lance Gula

James E Hansen

Li Yu

Douglas Michael Brandt

Mark Anthony Janusek

Craig Joseph Puhalla

Peter K Moldovan

Peter J Unsworth

Anthony Thomas Ricciuti

Francois Jean Marchand

Vijay Bhavaraju

Zachary Ryan Jenkins

James Patrick Sisley

Brian John Schaltenbrand

David Edward Little

Michael R Larsen

Nilesh Ankush Kadam

Slobodan Krstic

Daniel Evan Palmieri

Frank Joseph Stifter, Jr

Thomas M Ruchti

James A Becker

Yi Yang

Logan D Weigle

Michael Bartonek

Brian Scott Jansto

Edward T Gisske

Alaa Abdel-Azim Elmoursi

Jason C Gauss

Martin Bernardus Johannes Leusenkamp

Qiang Fu

Lian Q Zou

Jayaraman Muniyappan

Brian Scott Caffro

Jason B Carrodus

Timothy F Thompson

Hemant K Mody

Andrew W Lichauer

Coil-based actuators for use in opening and closing the separable contacts of circuit interrupters provide increased initial velocity for opening strokes and improved damping at the end of opening strokes by utilizing current-based damping and omitting contact springs and contact dampeners.

Thomson coil with energized coil damping

An assembly for manufacturing the insulation layer of a Thomson coil includes a base plate, a coil housing, and a cover plate. The base plate securely seats the coil housing, and the coil housing securely seats a Thomson coil and the cover plate. The cover plate has several ribs that hold multiple turns of a Thomson coil in place while epoxy is applied to the coil, thus ensuring that the epoxy is evenly distributed on the coil surface and that the coil windings remain level. The cover plate and coil housing are structured to either receive a high-pressure epoxy injection or to be used in an epoxy potting process, during which all exposed areas of the Thomson coil are coated by liquid epoxy. After the epoxy has solidified, the Thomson coil is coupled to the coil housing, and the housed and insulated Thomson coil is removed from the assembly.

Thomson coil design and potting process

An apparatus includes a housing (e.g., a housing having a form factor of a molded case circuit breaker) and at least two phase terminals supported by the housing and configured to be connected to respective ones of at least two phase buses in an electrical panelboard. The apparatus further includes at least one fault generation device supported by the housing and including an arc containment chamber and first and second spaced-apart electrodes in the arc containment chamber and electrically coupled to respective ones of the at least two phase terminals.

Arc mitigation apparatus and systems for panelboard applications

An improved PCB Rogowski coil addresses the challenges presented by space constraints within circuit interrupters. The disclosed coil comprises a plurality of PCBs that are coupled together, in contrast with known coils constructed from only a single PCB. During a pre-assembly stage, three PCBs are coupled to one another in order to form a partial coil assembly structured to be mounted onto a circuit interrupter primary conductor. After the partial coil assembly is mounted onto the primary conductor, a fourth PCB is connected to the partial coil assembly via press-fit connectors to form a complete coil. In contrast with known PCB Rogowski coils which are structured to be mounted perpendicularly to the primary conductor, the disclosed modular PCB Rogowski coil enables a substantial portion of the PCB surface area to be mounted in parallel to the primary conductor and to thus occupy significantly less space than known PCB Rogowski coils.

Compact flat-mount segmented Rogowski coil

A dual conductor Thomson coil actuator for use in opening the separable contacts of a circuit interrupter comprises two nested conductors wound to form a single coil, rather than the traditional design comprising one single conductor wound to form a coil of the same size. Each of the two conductors can be excited by half the capacitance that would be used to excite the traditional single conductor coil, using the same voltage as the single conductor coil. When the same total capacitor-stored energy that would be used to excite the single conductor coil is instead used to excite the dual conductor coil, the initial pulse of aggregate current through the dual conductor coil is greater than the initial pulse of current through the single conductor coil, resulting in a faster initial opening distance of the separable contacts during an opening stroke.

Dual conductor Thomson coil for faster opening of a hybrid circuit breaker

A system including an arc flash sensor that detects an arc flash event and an arc flash mitigation device in communication with the sensor. The mitigation device includes a path of least resistance having a path input and a path output. The arc flash sensor is located downstream the output. The mitigation device includes an electro-mechanical switch between the input and the output and an actuator. The mitigation device also includes a bypass power switch device that includes a solid-state circuit interrupter and that conduct current between the input and the output in response to an open-circuit condition of the switch. A system controller is provided to generate a trigger to activate the actuator to generate the open-circuit condition of the switch, which causes the power switch device to interrupt a fault current associated with a fault event in response to detection of the arc flash event.

Hybrid arc flash mitigation system

A manual opening mechanism for use with an isolation switch of a circuit interrupter is fully integrated into the circuit interrupter. The manual opening mechanism includes a rotating handle that is accessible from the front panel of the circuit interrupter. Rotating the handle applies force to the centerline of the isolation switch drive shaft, which prevents uneven loading and thus optimizes robustness during manual opening of the isolation switch. In addition, the handle has an ergonomic design, and is proportioned to minimize the force that an operator must apply to the handle in order to open the isolation switch.

Fully integrated manual open mechanism for MVDC hybrid circuit breaker

An actuator for opening the separable contacts of a circuit interrupter integrates a Thomson coil arrangement into the movable and stationary conductor assemblies. A movable separable contact is coupled to one end of the movable conductor, and a stationary separable contact is coupled to one end of the stationary conductor. The movable and stationary conductors are each formed with a collar positioned near the respective movable and stationary separable contacts. The actuator further includes a coil seated within a coil housing, and the coil housing is coupled to the stationary conductor collar. A conductive member shaped as a cup and structured to be actuated by the coil is coupled to the movable conductor collar, such that the rim of the cup faces the coil. A housing is positioned around the conductive member cup body with bellows and coupled to the coil housing, forming a vacuum chamber around the separable contacts.

Vacuum interrupter conductor assembly with integrated Thomson coil

An acoustic sensing system for detecting movement of an ultra-fast actuator in a hybrid circuit interrupter is disclosed. The system comprises a number of acoustic sensors structured to perform active or passive position sensing. For active sensing, the sensors emit sound waves toward a number of targeted portions of the actuator moving assembly and detect the positions of the targets based on acoustic signals reflected back to the sensors by the targets. For passive sensing, the sensors detect acoustic wavelets generated as a result of the moving assembly components moving during opening and closing operations. Acoustic signals can propagate through air or solids and thus the sensors can be mounted in a variety of locations within the circuit interrupter. Acoustic sensors are particularly well-suited for the circuit interrupter environment, as they are resilient to the environmental and external factors, such as dust, that can affect the performance of non-acoustic sensors.

Acoustic sensing of thomson coil based vacuum circuit interrupter operation

A circuit interrupter including a current sensor having a normal sensor output and an over current detection output, a solid state switch module structured to have a closed state to allow current to flow through the circuit interrupter and an open state to interrupt current flowing through the circuit interrupter, a gate driver structured to control the solid state switch module including a desaturation function output, wherein the gate driver is structured to cause the solid state switch module to interrupt current flowing through the circuit interrupter when the DESAT function output changes to the on state, and an electronic trip circuit structured to output a trip signal to the gate driver when the normal sensor output reaches a first threshold level or the overcurrent detection output changes to the on state.

Solid state circuit interrupter

A circuit interrupter includes a frame, a set of separable contacts that can be generally stated as including a stationary contact and a movable contact, the stationary contact being affixed to the frame, a shaft movably situated on the frame, the movable contact being situated on the shaft, a drive system situated on the frame and operable to move the shaft with respect to the frame between a first position and a second position, the set of separable contact being a CLOSED state in the first position of the shaft and being in an OPEN state in the second position of the shaft, and a brake that can be generally stated as including a mass movably situated on the frame, the shaft being structured to engage the mass and to cause the mass to be in motion when moving from the first position toward the second position.

Circuit interrupter with brake system for shaft that opens separable contacts

A vacuum interrupter has a toroidal portion at one or both ends that achieves higher dielectric levels and hence higher interruption levels.

Toroidal encapsulation for high voltage vacuum interrupters

Arc mitigation devices

A combination motor control device includes a power circuit () structured to sense voltage and/or current flowing through the combination motor control device, a semiconductor switching and interruption circuit () including a number of solid state transistors and being operable to turn on to allow power to flow through the combination motor control device and to turn off to stop allowing power to flow through the combination motor control device, and a control circuit () structured detect faults in power flowing through the combination motor control device based on the sensed voltage and/or current, to control the semiconductor switching and interruption circuit () to provide a motor starter and/or motor controller functionality, and to control the semiconductor switching and interruption circuit () to turn off in response to detecting a fault in power flowing through the combination motor control device.

Motor control device with solid state circuit breaker

Growing community of inventors

Wexford, PA, United States of America

Xin Zhou