Operation of Circuit Breaker - Essay Example

The turning on of the portable heater in the room and subsequent opening of the room’s circuit breaker and the going off of the lights could be attributed to the high current passing through the heater or the low resistance of the metal strip in the circuit breaker. To understand these postulations, it would be critical to understand the operation of circuit breakers which has been described by El-Sharkawi (31) as a switch that would automatically open when exposed to high current.

In this context, the portable room heater needs to have high resistance to be effective in the emission of heat. As such, a high current would be required for this function.

Similarly, the metal strip in the circuit breaker could be of too low resistance. As such, it fails to contain the flow of current required for the normal operation of the room heater. As such, any slight rise in the current above what sustains the lighting of the bulbs in the room would exceed its resistance threshold, warming up the metal strip causing it to bend away from the circuit and breaking the electric connection and the lights go off.

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