Contact heating may results in overheating and insulation failure in switchgears. The three-dimensional modeling software Solidworks and the finite element analysis software ANSYS are applied to temperature field simulation of contact heating for an XGN2-12/3150 switchgear. Comparison between the temperature fields in the switchgear with different contact resistance under rated current is performed.The results show that the maximum temperatures of the isolation switch contacts

circuit breaker contacts and bus-bar joints increase linearly with the increase in contact resistance; and the temperature difference between the temperature at monitoring point near a contact and the relevant maximum temperature increases with the increase in contact resistance. The temperature at monitoring point near a contact can be used to estimate the temperature of the contact. This study may be applied to temperature correction and monitoring local temperature rise in switchgears.