On the polymer - based nanocomposites for electrical switching applications

Tryck: Universitetsservice US AB Frontpage: Photograph of the MCB and its internal components, (a, b, c) recorded images of the electric arc at different times. (Courtesy of ABB, www.abb.com.) iii "Keep going even when there are obstacles." v PREFACE This thesis is submitted as a compilation of scientific papers for fulfilling the requirements of the doctoral thesis (PhD) in the physics department at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Muhammet S. Toprak for all the support and encouragement during this thesis work. He has given very object oriented support, which led to get this thesis done as per our time bound. My sincere thanks go to Prof. Hans Edin for being my co-supervisor, Prof. Rajeev Thottappillil and Prof. Joydeep Dutta for their constructive and continuous support to move ahead smoothly during my PhD studies. I am very grateful to my industrial supervisor Dr. Rudolf Gati, ABB corporate research, Switzerland for sharing his experimental and theoretical insights on the switching electrical arcs. Such insights helped me to understand experimental results with nanocomposites leading to appropriate scientific reasoning. I will always remember his interest towards engineering of present polymeric materials for different electrical switching applications. I would like to thank KIC InnoEnergy PhD School for giving an opportunity to learn entrepreneurial skills towards a startup from PhD studies. In the first part of my thesis, I worked for fabrication of PNCs at the Nano-characterization Laboratory in KTH. I would like to thank Dr. Mohsin Saleemi, Dr. Fei Ye and Dr. Carmen Vogt for sharing their knowledge on the synthesis of nanoparticles and nanocomposites, helping me to fabricate PNCs quickly. In the second part, fabricated PNCs are tested their impact on electrical arcs generate in a real circuit breaker system setup at Electromagnetic Engineering Lab, KTH. I would like to thank my colleagues Dr. Ara Bissal and Jesper Magnusson for their assistance during the experimental tests with the electric arcs. My special thanks go to Dr. Mykailo Gnybida and Dr. Christian Rumpler for allowing me to work on theoretical models to better understand the outgassing process at Eaton European Innovation Center, Prague. This period was good to start from basic to advanced models and detailed knowledge on different high voltage breakers. Many thanks to all my colleagues from Applied Physics, Electromagnetic Engineering departments for being so friendly during this period. I must admit that I …