Circuit Breaker Failure Analysis

Annually there are tens of thousands residential, electrical fires. These fires cause the deaths of hundreds of people. All residential buildings are fitted with equipment to protect a home in the event of an electrical fault. The major component of electrical fault protection is a circuit breaker. The purpose of a circuit breaker is to create an open circuit throughout the panel of wires connected to electrical appliances when there is an overload. An electric overload can occur when wires develop an excessive amount of current. If there is too much current going through the wires, the temperature rises, and eventually leads to a fire when the wires become too hot and start to melt. However, at this point, there are not a lot of data on the reliability of domestic circuit breakers. The aim of this project is to gather these missing data. This talk describes the design and implementation of a machine used to test multiple circuit breakers of different amperage ratings, age, brand, and manufacturer to determine the reliability of circuit breakers sold for domestic use. As a result from this study, we could shed some light on this problem by testing large quantities of domestic circuit breakers and seeing whether or not circuit breaker failure was involved in these electrical fires.