Simulation and Verification of Solid-State Breakers for Low Voltage Applications

Inhalt:
An experimentally verified solid state direct current (DC) breaker model was prepared to systematically analyze the influence of different system parameters to its overall performance. It has been shown that limiting both the peak fault current, and the system inductance, play and essential role in limiting the energy absorbed by the surge arrester (MOV), reducing size and cost. Furthermore, by minimizing the stray inductance between the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), the snubber, and the MOV to 10nH, the generated peak voltage during the turn-off process of the IGBT can be limited to 1.2 kV enabling the use of 1.2 kV class of IGBTs for low voltage systems.