scope:

This International Standard is applicable to a.c. circuit-breakers designed for indoor or outdoor installation, for operation at frequencies of 50 Hz and 60 Hz on systems having voltages above 1000 V and applied for inductive current switching with or without additional short-circuit current breaking duties. The standard is applicable to circuit-breakers in accordance with IEC 62271-100 that are used to switch high-voltage motor currents and shunt reactor currents and also to high-voltage contactors used to switch high-voltage motor currents [1] ¹.

Switching unloaded transformers, i.e. breaking transformer magnetizing current, is not considered in this standard. The reasons for this are as follows:

a) due to the non-linearity of the transformer core, it is not possible to correctly model the switching of transformer magnetizing current using linear components in a test laboratory. Tests conducted using an available transformer, such as a test transformer, will only be valid for the transformer tested and cannot be representative for other transformers;

b) as detailed in the guide for application of IEC 62271-100 and IEC 60694 (hereafter referred to as the guide [2]), the characteristics of this duty are usually less severe than any other inductive current switching duty. It should be noted that such a duty may produce severe overvoltages within the transformer winding(s) depending on the circuit-breaker re-ignition behaviour and transformer winding resonance frequencies.

Short-line faults, out-of-phase current making and breaking and capacitive current switching are not applicable to circuit-breakers applied to switch shunt reactors or motors. These duties are therefore not included in this standard.

Subclause 1.1 of IEC 62271-100 is otherwise applicable.

¹ Figures in square brackets refer to the bibliography.