Studies on Current Commutation in Hybrid DC-breakers

Sammanfattning: Compared to conventional AC-circuit breakers, a DC-breaker has to act fast and force the current down to zero. Many different DC-breaker topologies are available, and this thesis is focused on the hybrid DC-breaker comprising a mechanical switch and high power semiconductors.The main part of this thesis is focused on the current commutations in the hybrid DC-breaker. The two current commutations: from the mechanical switch to the semiconductor branch, and from the semiconductor to the metal oxide varistor, have completely different characteristics. When the mechanical switch opens, the metallic contacts separate and an electric arc is formed. As the voltage across the arc is higher than the voltage across the semiconductors, the current is pushed over to the semiconductor branch. The undesired stray inductance in the loop limits the current derivative and slows down the commutation. As the contacts keep separating, the arc voltage increases and eventually all current is conducted by the semiconductor and the arc ceases.For a hybrid DC-breaker, the worst case is a solid ground fault, as the fast rising current results in high current levels and makes the commutation from the mechanical switch to the semiconductor both difficult and slow. However, the fast rise of the current can be used to enhance the commutation by using coupled inductors in the two parallel branches. When the fault current rises in the semiconductor branch, the mutual coupling of the inductors causes the current in the mechanical switch to decrease and helps the commutation. The result is that the commutation time decreases with decreasing fault impedance, and makes the solid ground fault easier to handle.The commutation from the semiconductor to the metal oxide varistor is controlled by the turn-off of the semiconductor. When the semiconductor is turned off, it pulls the current down to zero with a rather constant current derivative regardless of the surrounding circuit and the system current is taken over by the metal oxide varistor. Hence, any inductance in the commutation loop will result in an over-voltage proportional to this inductance on top of the varistor voltage. By connecting a smaller metal oxide varistor, as a snubber, close to the semiconductor, the over-voltage can be controlled and the commutation from the snubber to the metal oxide varistor will be driven by the voltage difference between the two varistors.It is shown that for a 12 kV DC-system, a possible design of the mechanical switch in the hybrid DC-breaker comprises two contact gaps in series and opens with a velocity of 11 m/s. It has been experimentally verified that when starting the commutation at 4 kA, the commutation takes less than 700 us and is over before the switch has opened 1 mm.The thesis also contains proposed designs for an 80 kV DC-breaker that can be used as a modular solution for higher system voltages. For this higher voltage, the design will be a choice of the combination between the number of contact gaps in series and the opening velocity of the mechanical switch.