PROJECT TITLE :

First SF6 Breaker Design: Westinghouse Engineers Tell the Inside Story [History]

ABSTRACT:

Within the United States throughout the early 1950s, the big majority of high-voltage, high-power circuit breakers were styles that had evolved using bulk oil configurations. Although these oil breakers had an exemplary record, the chance of a failure, as well as an explosion and subsequent oil fireplace, still existed. As systems grew and high-voltage breakers were located increasingly in urban environments, the attainable consequences of a oil breaker failure gained considerably higher importance. In the first Fifties, the New York Consolidated Edison Company (Con Edison), in specific, started to push for an "oil-less" breaker design.