Abstract
Vacuum interrupters have a special asymmetric electrode structure to generate an magnetic field and consequently to increase the interrupting ability. Accordingly 2-dimensional analysis has a large analysis error because radial flux can not be considered. In this paper, in order to analyse the electric field distribution of a vacuum interrupter with arc shield more accurately, 3-dimensional finite element method(FEM) is used. The induced electric potentials of floating shield was increased with the gap distance, which is because the relative position of shield is closer to the fixed contact so that the capacitance distribution inside interrupter is varied. The calculated results also show that the induced potential of shield causes electric field distortion so that the maximum value of electric field in a vacuum interrupter with arc shield is higher than that without one.