In this paper, the basic structure and design parameters of an oil-immersed air core coupling reactor were given according to the interruption requirement of the 160 kV mechanical direct current circuit breaker, and a field-circuit coupled finite element model was established based on the ANSOFT simulation platform. The prototype test results verified the correctness of the simulation calculation method. The coupling reactor design was optimized to minimize the total volume, taking equal height and heat flux design parameters as the optimization object, and the influence of the insulation distance between the oil tank and encapsulations on the secondary current of the coupling reactor were analyzed. Meanwhile, a combined optimization method about the reactor body and oil tank was proposed, and the optimization contour surface was plotted, which described the relationship between the total volume of the coupling reactor and structure parameters of the reactor body and oil tank. According to the optimization design results, the total volume was only 89% compared with the initial design parameters, and the correctness was verified by the simulation results.