Summary:

In an electric power system, switchgear is composed of electrical disconnect switches, fuses or circuit breakers used to control, protect and isolate electrical equipment. Switchgear is used both to de-energize equipment to allow work to be done and to clear faults downstream. This type of equipment is directly linked to the reliability of the electricity supply. Testing of Switch gear Systems is most important in Switch gear manufacturing for quality checking.

With combination of NI Hardware and Software we can measure the following Tests as mention below:

• Contact Timing Test: Contact timing testing measures the time between order initiation and the closing or parting of the contacts.
• Travel and Velocity Test: Travel and velocity testing measures the electrical current’s travel and velocity curves to assess interruption capability.
• Functional Test: Functional testing assesses whether the circuit breaker is functioning properly.
• Vibration Test: Vibration testing measures the vibration signature of the circuit breaker.
• X-Ray Test: X-ray testing evaluates the condition of components that are located in closed assemblies.
• Contact Resistance Test: Contact resistance testing measures the contact resistance between parts that conduct current.
• Dynamic Contact Resistance Test: Dynamic contact resistance testing measures contact resistance continuously from start to stop.
• AC Insulation Test: AC insulation testing measures the insulation that separates open contacts, as well as line and ground.
• Auxiliary Circuits Insulation Test: Auxiliary circuits insulation testing measures the insulation for low voltage control circuits.
• Tightness Test: Tightness testing is the manual testing of breaker connections for tightness.

We have used CompactRIO (or cRIO) which is a real-time embedded industrial controller with a combination of a real-time controller, reconfigurable IO Modules (RIO), FPGA module and an Ethernet expansion chassis. And are often used as an industrial control unit, where a small form factor and ruggedness are important.

The LabVIEW Electrical Power Toolkit is used create applications to measure, analyze, and record electrical power data. The LabVIEW Electrical Power Toolkit is a software add-on for LabVIEW that provides VIs which helped us to create custom single- or three-phase power monitoring, metering, or quality analysis applications.

Using NI products, we created an integrated, reliable solution that caters to the different requirements in the setup. This reduced application development time and product testing time.