Opportunity: direct electromechanical coupling of a piezoelectric

Opportunity

The direct electromechanical coupling of a
piezoelectric actuator means that it would be
possible to tailor the contact opening
trajectory simply by controlling the charge
on the actuator. It is known that the opening
velocity profile can have a significant effect
on the contact erosion [36, 37], and it may
therefore be possible to optimize the contact
opening trajectory for minimum contact
erosion. This is an important area for further
study.
These initial results show that despite a low
contact opening velocity on the
piezoelectrically operated contacts (due to
the large mass of the moving contact) the
transition to rapid arc motion away from the
contact region occurs only slightly later than
the constant velocity system. Clearly the
contact mass is a significant factor in the
speed of operation of the contact system.

Ref: Piezoelectrics in Circuit Breakers: Design & Test