Two dimensional optical fiber measurement system is used to investigate experimentally the arc motion and reignition with four different configurations of quenching chamber in an AC contactor. It demonstrates that the splitter plate arrangement has significant effect on the arc motion in arc quenching chamber, and fixing arc runner in the first and last splitter plates benefits to arc motion, and increase the dielectric recovery strength. The results are very useful to design the quenching chamber in AC contactor with high performance.

In order to understand the recovery characteristics of AC contactors and improve their performance, experimental measurements were used to investigate the arcing gap recovery process including dielectric recovery strength and reignition, to a pair of splitter plate together and four kinds of arc chamber of AC contactors. A special circuit was designed to perform the work. It demonstrates that under lower current, the dielectric recovery strengths of all kinds of arc chambers in the paper have no significant difference. However, with the increase of current, the difference of dielectric recovery strengths of them is much clear. The reignition characteristics of a pair of splitter plate and arc chambers are similar. With different configurations of arc chambers and prospective currents, the forms of post current zero reignition are distinct.