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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

T-Type Modular DC Circuit Breaker (T-Breaker) for Future DC Networks

The developed T-Type Modular DC Circuit Breaker (T-Breaker) technology offers an all-in-one solution to challenges in DC networks. This includes swift fault detection and protection, power transient stability, and power quality improvement, achieved through the utilization of wide bandgap (WBG) power semiconductors and energy storage devices. The T-Breaker not only facilitates rapid fault current detection and interruption but also implements fault current limiting through active insertion of storage devices or by operating WBG devices in the saturation region. Additionally, with the assistance of energy storage devices, potential overvoltage issues on power devices induced by control signal misalignment can be mitigated. The T-Breaker can be regulated to perform shunt current injection/absorption using the vertical arm and series voltage insertion via the horizontal arm, thereby enhancing DC system stability during voltage or load power fluctuation transients. The OSU team and Raytheon team actively worked together on designing, fabricating, assembling, and testing of two T-Breaker prototypes. The first prototype is rated at 1 kV, 500 A with half-bridge (unipolar) structure to validate the T-Breaker concept. The second prototype is rated at 20 kV, 50 A with full-bridge (bipolar) topology which can reach an efficiency of 99.977%, realize a power density of 60.2 MW/m3, and eliminate the 500-A fault current with a fault response time of around 20 µs. The prototypes show great feasibility of adopting this technology in multiple applications including electrified aircraft, super charging stations, data centers, etc.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

DC Circuit Breakers: A Technology Development Status Survey

DC circuit breakers (DCCBs) play a significant role in obtaining the reliability and stability of DC power systems. Selective and fast isolating of faults minimizes the power supply outages to end electricity users and protects the power converters implemented in the DC system. During the last decades, DCCBs have been deeply investigated in industry and academia. There has been impressive progress in terms of efficiency, response time, power-density, lifetime, and electrical operating ratings. Introducing wide bandgap (WBG) devices further has motivated researchers to propose more efficient and novel topologies. This paper provides a point of reference and a background review for DCCBs from novel aspects, fulfilling absent parts in the literature. The elaborated subjects include current commutation circuitry, DCCBs trip-curves developments, newly added functions to DCCBs, as well as marketing analysis. The advancements of DCCBs are surveyed and development needs are recognized. This paper aims to identify the future research needs of DCCBs for emerging DC power systems.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

A 4 kV/120 A SiC Solid-State DC Circuit Breaker Powered By a Load-Independent IPT System

This article introduces a 4 kV/120 A solid-state dc circuit breaker (DCCB) based on discrete SiC mosfets. The DCCB is designed in a five-layer tower structure. Each layer consists of a circular main conduction branch and an attached gate driver. There are two primary benefits of the proposed DCCB. First, it reduces conduction loss with multiple devices in parallel. Second, it achieves an ultrafast response speed with SiC mosfets. Moreover, the gate drivers of the DCCB are powered by a domino inductive power transfer (IPT) system. It achieves the load-independent constant-voltage output characteristics, which means the outputs are immune to load variations. Additionally, an IPT system prototype is implemented to test the power transfer performance. At 500-kHz frequency, the total output power reaches 15.73 W, which is sufficient to power on five gate drivers, with a peak transfer efficiency of 75.4%. The IPT system is tested to power a 4 kV/120 A DCCB prototype. It validates that the DCCB is effective to turn off 120 A current within 3.5 μs.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Modular DC circuit breaker with integrated energy storage for future DC networks

A T-breaker is an all-in-one solution for dc microgrid fault protection, power flow control, and power quality improvement. A T-breaker features a modular multilevel “T” structure with integrated energy storage devices. The two horizontal arms of the T-breaker realize fault current breaking, load voltage compensation, and power flow control; and the vertical arm of the T-breaker realizes shunt compensation. The configuration provides excellent voltage scalability and relaxes the requirements on the switching signal synchronization during fault transients. The local energy storage in sub-modules eases the fault energy dissipation requirement placed on the traditionally-adopted surge arrestors. The modular multilevel structure also offers immense control flexibility for all types of targeted functions of the provided T-breaker.

Wang, Jin↗
NASA NTRS1983

Solid-State dc Circuit Breaker

Circuit breaker with no moving parts protects direct-current (dc) loads. Current which circuit breaker opens (trip current) is adjustable and so is time delay before breaker trips. Forward voltage drop rises from 0.6 to 1.2 V as current rises to trip point. Breaker has two terminals, like fuse, therefore replaces fuse in dc circuit. Powered by circuit it protects and reset by either turning off power source or disconnecting load.

Harvey, P.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Development and testing of a 180-volt dc electronic circuit breaker with a 335-ampere carry and 1200-ampere interrupt rating

NASA Lewis Research Center and associated contractors have conducted a program to assess the potential requirements for a high-current switch to conceptually design a switch using the best existing technology, and to build and demonstrate a breadboard which meets the requirements. The result is the high current remote bus isolator (HRBI). The HRBI is rated at 180 V dc, 335 A continuous with a 1200 A interrupt rating. It also incorporates remote-control and protective features called for by the Space Station Freedom PMAD dc test bed design. Two breadboard 335 A circuit breakers were built and tested that demonstrate a promising concept of paralleled current-limiting modules. The units incorporated all control and protective features required by advanced aerospace power systems. Component stresses in each unit were determined by design, and are consistent with a life of many thousands of fault operations.

Brush, A. S.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ultra-Fast Resonant DC Breaker

This project’s focus was to create an ultra-fast resonant hybrid dc circuit breaker for medium voltage electric systems. Medium voltage DC systems offer higher efficiency, additional resiliency, more controllability, and greater flexibility over comparable AC systems. Although technically, medium voltage DC systems are more attractive than their AC counterparts, no solution exists for the protection of medium voltage DC systems, and thus one cannot build a reliable MVDC system. This research will fill the technology gap, providing a MVDC protection solution, allowing mass adoption and proliferation of MVDC systems. MVDC systems will allow greater integration of renewable energy sources, higher efficiency of transmission and distribution, reduced losses in transmission lines, reduce carbon emissions, and higher electric power reliability.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Adaptive Fault Current-Limiting Control of MMC for Protection of Multiterminal HVDC Systems: Preprint

For the development of multi-terminal high voltage DC (MTDC) transmission, it is critical to design the protection system that can selectively isolate the faulty area from the healthy part of the dc grid using DC circuit breakers (DCCBs) while ensuring continuous operation of converter stations in the healthy part. However, because of the lack of fault current blocking capability in half-bridge (HB) modular multilevel converters (MMCs), when a dc fault occurs, the rising fault currents can quickly reach the blocking threshold within a few milliseconds and disrupt the operation of MMCs in the healthy part. Large DC reactors are often considered in series with DCCBs to reduce the rate of rise of fault currents and prevent blocking of MMCs in the healthy part of the grid. However, large DC reactors can prohibitively increase the cost of the system, particularly when they are considered in an offshore environment, for instance in offshore wind projects. Large dc reactors can also introduce stability issues and create post-fault oscillations. This paper presents an adaptive fault current limiting control method for MMCs to avoid their blocking and enable continuous operation of MTDC systems. It contains two parts: The first part is based on circulating current feedforward control that emulates virtual reactors in each arm of an MMC, which is immediately activated when the fault current starts to increase, to reduce the rate of rise of the fault current; the second part is triggered when the fault current exceeds a preset threshold by temporarily bypassing the SMs, serving as a complement to the fault current limiting effect of the first part. Both parts do not require fault detection signal and they are activated automatically during faults. Simulation case studies of a four-terminal bipolar MMC-HVDC system are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control methods.

active fault current limiting↗