Modeling and simulation of bimetallic strips in industrial circuit breakers

This paper presents a dynamical model for the dynamics of the bimetallic strip in industrial circuit breakers. The strip acts as thermo-mechanical actuator that opens the circuit breaker in case of overloads. The overall model can be decomposed in two submodels: an electrothermal and a thermo-mechanical one. The first submodel is derived as a gray -box, while the second one as a black-box. Given the overall estimated model, the final aim is to determine appropriate calibration actions on the device prior to its delivery. The developed model is tested on experimental data of real industrial circuit-breakers.