Breaking capacity or interrupting capacity is the current that a fuse, circuit breaker, or other electrical apparatus is able to interrupt without being destroyed or causing an electric arc with unacceptable duration. The prospective short circuit current which can occur under short circuit conditions should not exceed the rated breaking capacity of the apparatus. Otherwise breaking of the current cannot be guaranteed. Breaking capacity current corresponds to a voltage, so an electrical apparatus may have more than one breaking capacity current, according to the voltage. Breaking current may be stated in terms of the total current or just in terms of the alternating-current (symmetrical) component. Since the time of opening of a fuse or switch is not coordinated with the reversal of the alternating current, in some circuits the total current may be offset and can be larger than the alternating-current component by itself.
Read more about Breaking Capacity: Choosing Breaking Capacity, Breaking Capacities
Famous quotes containing the words breaking and/or capacity:
“What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“People between twenty and forty are not sympathetic. The child has the capacity to do but it can’t know. It only knows when it is no longer able to do—after forty. Between twenty and forty the will of the child to do gets stronger, more dangerous, but it has not begun to learn to know yet. Since his capacity to do is forced into channels of evil through environment and pressures, man is strong before he is moral. The world’s anguish is caused by people between twenty and forty.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)