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The aim has been to provide an up-to-date analysis of the theoretical and practical problems involved in circuit breaker design. Circuit breakers present very special design problems because of the wide mixture of experience required.

Designers need to have an understanding of the parameters of power systems in which circuit breakers have a duty; of the physics of the arc produced during the interrupting process; of electrical engineering which is concerned with the insulation co-ordination and design problems; of mechanical engineering on which the performance and reliability of the operation of the circuit breaker depend; and of the need to meet cost-effective criteria.

Perhaps because of the wide range of techniques involved, there has until now been very little co-ordinated information available in a form suitable for use at universities and for providing subsequent guidance for postgraduate purposes; and for engineers who are concerned with design, system engineering or the use of circuit-breakers, who may need to have, in varying degrees, an understanding of the design problems involved in circuit breakers.

The approach in editing this book has been to invite eminent engineers concerned with circuit breakers to write chapters in areas that are of special interest to them. It has therefore been planned with chapters covering defined subjects. All of the authors are, or have recently been, occupying senior positions in the power circuit breaker industry.

C.H. Flurscheim, BA, FEng, FIEEE, FIMechE, FIEE, the editor and part-author of this volume, read mechanical sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge. He went to the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co. as a graduate apprentice in 1927 and afterwards joined the staff of the Switchgear Engineering Department. During the war he was responsible for the development of a series of electrical components for aircraft, including under-carriage systems and miniature circuit breakers.

In 1949 he was appointed chief engineer of the Switchgear Department, and in 1957 chief electrical engineer of the Metropolitan-Vickers Co., of which he was made a director in 1958. After the reorganisation of the company he became director of engineering of the Power Group and later director of Engineering of the AEI company.

Mr Flurscheim has read many papers before the IEE and other technical institutions. He served as Chairman of the IEE Power Division in 1964-65.

Apart from his lifelong interest in switchgear, he was, when younger, interested in automobile engineering, and designed one of the first fully automatic gearboxes for motor cars in 1933.