Mechanical and electrical Life of Circuit Breakers

Circuit breakers whether it's ACB, VCB, MCCB etc. you must know about no. of Mechanically  and electrical operations/Life of that circuit breaker.

These are described by Manufacturer in its detailed technical specification.

For An electrical engineer these are very important while designing their electrical systems:-

Mechanically Operations or Mechanical Life:-

As clearly from the name mechanical operations of a Circuit breaker is no. of times a Circuit breaker is made ON/Off.

Electrical Operations or Electrical Life:-

These are those operations in which Circuit breaker is Made ON/OFF or Trip at available power supply.

For a MCCB life of MCCB is getting lower lower as rating of MCCB is getting increased:-

For example for MCCB's data is below:-

at Rated Current upto 100A-- Mechanical life is 8500 Operations and Electrical Life is 1500 Operations

at Rated Current from 100A to Max 315A --Mechanical life is 7000 Operations and Electrical life is 1000 Operations

at Rated Current from 315A to Max 630A --Mechanical life is 4000 Operations and Electrical life is 1000 Operations

at Rated Current from 630A to Max 800A --Mechanical life is 2500 Operations and Electrical life is 500 Operations

For ACB'S No. of operations details is below:-

at Rated Current upto 1600A-- Mechanical life is 20000 Operations and Electrical Life is 5000 Operations

at Rated Current from 1600A to Max 3200A --Mechanical life is 15000 Operations and Electrical life is 5000 Operations

at Rated Current from 3200A to Max 5000A --Mechanical life is 10000 Operations and Electrical life is 2000 Operations

at Rated Current from 5000A to Max 5300A --Mechanical life is 10000 Operations and Electrical life is 2000 Operations