Capacitive Breaking Capacity of a Breaker

[SooryaShrestha]

Recently I happened to go into the details of the specification of a Gas Circuit Breaker. I found that the breaking capacity of a breaker for line charging (Capacitive)is lower than that for the capacitive breaking current of a cable. The capacitive breaking current of a breaker for Capacitor Current is higher than that for the cable. My querry is why should the breaking current for the same breaker with different equipment for capacitive current be different?

 

[coyney]

Regardless of whether the load is inductive or capacitive the load is more onerous to switch when compared with a purely resitive load (i.e unity power-factor).

The rated making capacity of a circuit-breaker is more arduous than the breaking capacity because of the potential XL/R ratio.

If you consult IEC 947-2 (1996 version) for example you will find the details in table 2 page 14.

I hope this will assist.

Regards,