The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 12, 1999
Filed:
Mar. 04, 1997
David Arnold, Chester, CT (US);
General Electric Company, New York, NY (US);
Abstract
A compact current limiting circuit breaker is equipped with a current limiting shunt for effective over-current circuit interruption. The circuit breaker trip unit responds to long time, short time and instantaneous over-current conditions by opening a set of contacts to isolate the protected circuit. Upon contact separation an arc is drawn, with the endpoints of the arc being initially rooted on the pair of open contacts. Further opening of the contacts commutates the arc into the current limiting shunt to redirect the current away from the trip unit and suppress the arcing current until the circuit breaker contacts are sufficiently open to isolate the protected circuit.