SIEMENS SIQUENCH ARC QUENCHING SYSTEM
Have you ever wondered how catastrophic an internal arc fault in a medium-voltage switchgear can be? Even in an internal arc classified switchgear
An arc fault is an uncontrolled electrical discharge that results from a low-impedance connection through air to ground or another voltage phase in an electrical system. This discharge translates into an arc flash with light and heat produced, causing substantial damage to the equipment and surroundings. The traditional method of eliminating the fault source by tripping the main breaker all by itself is not fast enough to reduce arc flash incident levels to a safe value. Nowadays most modern arc flash protection relays carry the level of protection to one step further by limiting the detection and tripping times but still in the league of 50-100 ms. fault duration where pressure peak, sound blast and shrapnel effects could not be avoided. SIQuench is available as a complete solution integrated into type-tested, internal arc classified, medium-voltage switchgear type NXAirS, rated up to 12 kV, 40 kA, 4000A. When internal arc occurs, SIQuench creates a three-phase low impedance parallel path for fault current to flow thus extinguishing the arc fault instantaneously. It operates in less than 5 ms. - long before the pressure peak - minimizes or totally eliminates the damaging effects of the arcing fault. SIQuench is fully reusable, can do 5 operations with full short circuit current as well as allowing 30 switching operations without load for routine testing, commissioning and system testing purposes. Being a state-of-the-art solution in the range of proactive safety measures of available, it takes the switchgear to an another level going beyond the safety set by the standards and it also brings protection beyond the standards for our customers.