Compressed air for rapidly cooling motors?

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Yes teams also spray the main breaker, but in this case there simply is not enough thermal mass inside the main breaker for this method to be effective.

Al,

I thought these breakers were thermal (too much heat and a bi-metallic strip trips). What does it mean that there isn't enough thermal mass? Just that the electric heat builds up too quickly for the temperature at the start of the match to matter much?

That doesn't really jive with my (anecdotal) experiences. The only time I've ever tripped a main breaker is after consecutive matches where I assume heat would be building up in the breaker. Is it that that the heat building up in every motor makes everything less efficient resulting in more current draw and more heating? Or something else?