The present invention relates to a contact device that can bring a pair of connectable-disconnectable conductors into contact with each other through contacts to allow a current to flow between the conductors.
For example, as a conventional contact device for a gas insulated switch, a known device includes a pair of conductors that are disposed coaxially and axially moved to fit their end portions together so that a current is allowed to flow between the pair of conductors through conductive contacts at the fitting surfaces. These contacts are disposed on the fitting surface of either one of the pair of conductors and come into sliding contact with the fitting surface of the other conductor when the conductors are fitted together. For large current devices or the like, a plurality of contacts are generally disposed on a fitting surface, and these contacts are axially spaced apart from each other at predetermined intervals to ensure current carrying capacity between the conductors.
Patent document 1 discloses a bus connecting device having a structure different from that of the above contact device. This bus connecting device includes a connecting conductive member for connecting a pair of insulated buses. This connecting conductive member has a through hole formed thereinside, and insertion conductors screwed and connected to the ends of the insulated buses are inserted into the through hole. The outer periphery of each insertion conductor includes a large-diameter portion formed on the screwed side and a small-diameter portion formed on the end side. A contact that comes into contact with the inner surface of the through hole is provided on the outer circumference of the large-diameter portion of each insertion conductor. A spring contact is attached to substantially the center of the through hole. Each end of the spring contact comes into contact with the outer circumference of the small-diameter portion of each of the insertion conductors, and the central portion of the spring contact is in contact with the inner surface of the through hole. With this structure, assembly errors and the expansion-contraction of the buses are absorbed sufficiently. This may ensure reliable contact between the contacting parts and improve the workability during bus connecting work.
Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. S58-119710
In the above conventional contact device, however, the contacts are disposed on the fitting surface only of either one of the pair of the conductors. Generally, a plurality of contacts are provided to ensure current carrying capacity between conductors. Therefore, in such a case, a plurality of contacts successively come into sliding contact with a single contact area on the opposite fitting surface and move when the fit is made. This causes a problem in that the damage to the opposite fitting surface increases.
In Patent document 1, different contacts are used for the large-diameter portions and the small-diameter portions, and the contact areas for the different contacts are separated from each other. However, the bus connecting device is provided for the structure for bus connection between insulated buses, and this structure is essentially different from the structure for opening-closing an open-close section by sliding-contact of contacts. Therefore, this bus connecting device does not solve the problem in the conventional contact device.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a contact device that can reduce the damage to contact surfaces caused by sliding of contacts.
In order to solve the aforementioned problem and attain the aforementioned object, a contact device according to one aspect of the present invention is constructed in such a manner as to include: a first conductor and a second conductor disposed with the first conductor on a common axis and having a fitting hole into which the first conductor can be inserted, at least one of the first and second conductors being axially moved to fit the first and second conductors together so that a current is allowed to flow between the first and second conductors through contacts, and the contact device is constructed in such a manner as to further include: a conductive first contact that is disposed circumferentially on an outer circumferential surface of the first conductor and is contactable with an inner circumferential surface of the fitting hole, and a conductive second contact that is disposed circumferentially on the inner circumferential surface of the fitting hole and is contactable with the outer circumferential surface of the first conductor.
In the present invention, a contact is provided for each of the pair of conductors. Therefore, when the conductors are fitted together, the first contact slides on the inner circumferential surface of the fitting hole, and the second contact slides on the outer circumferential surface of the first conductor. This allows the fitting-surface damage caused by the sliding of the contacts to be distributed to the inner circumferential surface and the outer circumferential surface. Therefore, an effect is demonstrated in that the damage to the fitting surfaces caused by the sliding of the contacts can be reduced as compared to that in the conventional structure in which both the first and second contacts are disposed on either one of the conductors.
Embodiments of a contact device according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the invention is not limited to these embodiments.
As shown in
The conductor 1 is composed of a hollow conductive member having, for example, a cylindrical fitting hole 15 formed at its one end. The conductor 2 is composed of, for example, a cylindrical conductive member. The fitting hole 15 is formed to have an inner diameter slightly larger than the outer diameter of the conductor 2 so that the conductor 2 can be fitted into the fitting hole 15. The conductors 1 and 2 are disposed such that their center axes align with each other and therefore face each other on the same axis line Z. The conductors 1 and 2 are illustrated with their contact sections enlarged. For a gas insulated switch, the conductors 1 and 2 are each connected to a central conductor (not shown) to which a high voltage is applied. In the present embodiment, for example, the conductor 1 is fixed, while the conductor 2 is movable and can be reciprocally moved along the axis line Z by a driving unit (not shown).
The coil spring A1 is an example of the contact disposed on the conductor 1 and is formed by winding a conductive spring material wire obliquely and helically around a winding axis and bonding opposite ends of the wire. The fitting groove 3 is formed annularly along the inner circumferential surface of the conductor 1 and has a cross section having a width that decreases toward its bottom, for example. The coil spring A1 fitted into the fitting groove 3 has an ellipsoidal cross section. The top portion of the coil spring A1 protrudes from the fitting groove 3, and the coil spring A1 is in contact with the side surfaces of the fitting groove 3 and is thereby locked. As described above, the coil spring A1 comes into contact with the conductor 1 at two points to reduce the contact electric resistance. The same applies to the fitting groove 4 and the coil spring B1.
The operation of the present embodiment will next be described with reference to
In
Next, in
Next, in
While the conductor 2 is driven, the coil spring B1 slides with the contact pressure between the coil spring B1 and the inner circumferential surface of the fitting hole 15 maintained, and the coil spring A1 slides with the contact pressure between the coil spring A1 and the outer circumferential surface of the conductor 2 maintained. When the conductor 2 is inserted to a predetermined position, the driving of the conductor 2 is stopped with a predetermined distance held between the coil spring A1 and the coil spring B1, as shown in
Preferably, the contact device 10 is configured such that L4<L5. More specifically, the axial distance (L5) from the center of the cross section of the coil spring A1 to the opening end of the conductor 1 is set to be longer than the axial distance (L4) from the center of the cross section of the coil spring A1 to the insertion end of the conductor 2. The reason that the above configuration is preferred will be described below by comparing the contact device 10 with a conventional contact device 30 shown in
As shown in
The conductor 21 is composed of a hollow conductive member having, for example, a cylindrical fitting hole 25 formed at its one end. The conductor 22 is composed of, for example, a cylindrical conductive member. The fitting hole 25 is formed to have an inner diameter slightly larger than the outer diameter of the conductor 22 so that the conductor 22 can be fitted into the fitting hole 25. The conductors 21 and 22 are disposed such that their center axes align with each other and therefore face each other on the same axis line Z. The conductors 21 and 22 are illustrated with their contact sections enlarged. For a gas insulated switch, the conductors 21 and 22 are each connected to a central conductor (not shown) to which a high voltage is applied. The conductor 21 is fixed, and the conductor 22 is movable, i.e., can be reciprocally moved along the axis line Z by a driving unit (not shown).
As described above, in the conventional contact device 30, both the coil springs A2 and B2 are disposed on the movable conductor 22. The rest of the configuration is the same as that in
The closing operation of the conventional contact device 30 will next be described with reference to
Next, in
Next, in
As shown in
As described above, in the present embodiment, the coil springs A1 and B1 serving as contacts are provided on the conductors 1 and 2, respectively. Therefore, when the conductors 1 and 2 are fitted together, the coil spring A1 slides on the outer circumferential surface of the conductor 2, and the coil spring B1 slides on the inner circumferential surface of the conductor 1. The fitting surface damage caused by sliding is thereby distributed to the inner circumferential surface and the outer circumferential surface. Therefore, an effect is demonstrated in that as compared with the conventional structure in which both the coil springs A2 and B2 are disposed on the conductor 22 as shown in
On the other hand, in the conventional contact device 30, when the conductors 21 and 22 are fitted together, the coil spring A2 slides on the inner circumferential surface of the fitting hole 25, and then the coil spring B2 slides on the same sliding area. Therefore, the damage to the inner circumferential surface is doubled and increased. The same applies when both the coil springs A2 and B2 are disposed on the fixed conductor 21. Also in this case, the damage to the outer circumferential surface caused by sliding increases.
In the present embodiment, the contact device 10 is configured such that L4<L5. Therefore, the sliding distance of the contacts is smaller than that in the conventional contact device 30. This allows a reduction in the damage to the contacts and also a reduction in the energy of the driving unit.
The use of the coil springs A1 and B1 as contacts can reduce the contact resistance with the conductors 1 and 2. Therefore, heat generation is suppressed, and the flow of a large current is allowed without an increase in size of the contact device 10.
In the configuration of the present embodiment, one coil spring A1 and one coil spring B1 are provided as an example, but this is not a limitation. A plurality of coil springs A1 or coil springs B1 may be provided, or a plurality of coil springs A1 and a plurality of coil springs B1 may be provided, according to current capacity. For example, when two coil springs A1 are provided on the conductor 1, these coil springs A1 are disposed on the inner circumferential surface of the fitting hole 15 so as to be separated from each other by a predetermined distance in the axial direction. When a plurality of coil springs A1 are provided on the conductor 1, each coil spring A1 is disposed so as to satisfy the above condition L4<L5. More specifically, each coil spring A1 is configured such that the axial distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring A1 to the opening end of the conductor 1 is longer than the axial distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring A1 to the insertion end of the Conductor 2. This configuration has an advantage in that the sliding distance of the contacts is shorter than that in a conventional contact device having the same number of contacts.
In the present embodiment, the conductor 1 is fixed, and the conductor 2 is movable. However, the conductor 1 may be movable, and the conductor 2 may be fixed. In addition, both the conductors may be movable. Also in these cases, the same advantage as that described above can be obtained.
In
The configuration of the present embodiment is the same as the configuration of the first embodiment except that the coil spring A1 is replaced with the protrusion 6. The operation in the present embodiment is the same as that in the first embodiment, and the same advantage can be demonstrated. For example, by setting L4<L5 as in the first embodiment, the sliding distance can be reduced as compared to that in the conventional contact device 30.
In the present embodiment, instead of the coil spring B1, a protrusion may be provided on the outer circumferential surface of the conductor 2 and used as a contact. Alternatively, a coil spring A1 may be used instead of the protrusions 6, and a protrusion may be used instead of the coil spring B1.
The outer diameter of the end portion 18 is slightly smaller than the bottom-side inner diameter of the fitting hole 20. An annular fitting groove 7 is formed circumferentially on the region 16, and a coil spring A1 serving as a contact on the conductor 35 is fitted into the fitting groove 7. The coil spring A1 comes into contact with the side surfaces of the fitting groove 7 and with the outer circumferential surface of the end portion 18 to allow electrical contact between the conductors 35 and 36. The outer diameter of the base portion 19 is slightly smaller than the opening-side inner diameter of the fitting hole 20. An annular fitting groove 8 is formed circumferentially on the outer circumferential surface of the base portion 19, and a coil spring B1 serving as a contact on the conductor 36 is fitted into the fitting groove 8. The coil spring B1 comes into contact with the side surfaces of the fitting groove 8 and with the region 17 to allow electrical contact between the conductors 35 and 36.
The present embodiment is configured such that the distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring A1 to the axis line Z is equal to the distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring B1 to the axis line Z. In the first embodiment, on the other hand, the distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring A1 to the axis line Z is larger than the distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring B1 to the axis line Z. Therefore, in the first embodiment, the radial size of the contact device 10 is large. On the other hand, in the present embodiment, the radial distance can be reduced as compared with that in the first embodiment due to the above reason. The rest of the configuration and the operation in the present embodiment are the same as those in the first embodiment. In addition, the present embodiment can be easily combined with the second embodiment.
In the present embodiment, the shapes of the conductor 36 and the fitting hole 20 are different from those in the first embodiment. However, the present embodiment is same as the first embodiment in that the contacts are disposed on the pair of conductors, respectively, by disposing the coil spring A1 on the conductor 35, and disposing the coil spring B1 on the conductor 36. Therefore, the same advantage as that in the first embodiment can be demonstrated.
In the present embodiment, the distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring A1 to the axis line Z is equal to the distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring B1 to the axis line Z, so that the radial size of the contact device 12 can be smaller than that in the first embodiment. Therefore, in a gas insulated switch, the insulation distance from a metal container that contains the contact device 12 is reduced, and the diameter of the metal container can be reduced. This allows a further reduction in installation space of the gas insulated switch.
Also in the conventional contact device 30, the distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring A2 to the axis line Z is equal to the distance from the center of the cross section of the coil spring B2 to the axis line Z. Therefore, according to the present embodiment, the contact device 12 has the same radial size as that of the contact device 30 and can hold similar current carrying performance.
The present invention is useful as a contact device used for an open-close section of a gas insulated switch.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP2009/052422 | 2/13/2009 | WO | 00 | 6/30/2011 |