Patent 7115831 was granted and assigned to Siemens Aktiengesellschaft on October, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
According to the invention, heat generated inside a vacuum interrupter (1) is to be extracted, essentially by means of the pins (7, 8) of the contact pieces (5, 6) and, in order to improve the transmission of heat, a first slide contact surface (18) of a slide contact arrangement is provided on a pin (7), whereby the first slide contact surface (18) is arranged on a first section of a pin (7) which comprises an enlarged circumference relative to the remaining sections of the pin (7).