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Direct-Current Vacuum Circuit Breaker WithSuperconducting Fault-Current Limiter
Direct-Current Vacuum Circuit Breaker WithSuperconducting Fault-Current Limiter
Direct-Current Vacuum Circuit Breaker WithSuperconducting Fault-Current Limiter
Abstract—The objective of this paper is to propose a dc current 31.5, 40, 50, 63, 75, 80, and 100 kA, for 1.5-kV dc systems
interruption technology for railway dc traction systems, consist- [7], which is well beyond that of high-voltage dc transmission
ing of a dc vacuum circuit breaker with a superconducting fault- systems. Currently, conventional air and SF6 switchgear sys-
current limiter (SFCL). To this end, a 1.5-kV dc circuit breaker
prototype is designed, involving a dc vacuum circuit breaker and tems are used commercially [8]–[10]. However, air switchgear
a resistive-type SFCL serially connected. The dc vacuum circuit systems experience issues with high noise, low current inter-
breaker is developed with a commutation circuit to generate a re- ruption times, and their large size. Alternative SF6 switchgear
verse injection current, and the resistive-type SFCL is composed implementations contribute to the greenhouse effect, with a poi-
of yttrium barium copper oxide superconducting tape. An LC cur- sonous arcing product, and due to the danger presented by SF6 ,
rent source tested the 1.5-kV prototype, showing that, when the
precharged capacitor voltage is 1.5 kV, the prospective current such systems are not recommended for low- and middle-voltage
is 47 kA increasing at a rate of 9.4 A/µs. The SFCL limits this applications.
current to ∼3 kA (peak value), and then, decreases the current to Hence, vacuum circuit breakers have received growing con-
2 kA after 6 ms, followed by successful clearance via the dc vacuum sideration as a promising substitute. Several research groups
circuit breaker. The proposed 1.5-kV circuit breaker will success- have investigated their potential as a replacement [11]–[15],
fully clear short-circuit faults up to 47 kA by first limiting the
prospective current and then interrupting it. accompanied by emerging commercialized designs [16]–[18],
since vacuum circuit breakers boast ecofriendly and low-noise
Index Terms—DC circuit breakers, dc power systems, supercon- qualities, while providing high insulation strength, space ef-
ducting fault-current limiter (SFCL), vacuum circuit breakers.
ficiency, simple maintenance, quick response times, and safe
I. INTRODUCTION interruption capabilities. This technology ensures safe interrup-
tion because decomposition products are not released outside of
AILWAY transportation has existed for the past two cen-
R turies [1], and modern systems employ electric traction in
their vital mission to develop and progress society. Electric trac-
the vacuum chamber. Yet, the fact that dc has no zero crossing
still limits commercial implementation of this kind of circuit
breaking technology. To mitigate this challenge, a reverse cur-
tion railways are one of the most convenient and cost-effective rent of greater amperage than the fault current must be injected
methods of travel. It can use both ac and dc voltage sources for in parallel to the protection system.
operation: ac traction utilizes 15 kV for a 16.7-Hz system or Prohibitively, dc vacuum circuit breakers need a large
25 kV for 50/60-Hz systems [2], [3], whereas dc traction re- precharging capacitor for inverse current injection, and they ne-
quires 600, 750, 1200, 1500, or 3000 V supplies to operate cessitate expensive saturable reactors to reduce di/dt around the
trams, light railways, subways, and fast trains [4]–[6]. zero-current point. During dc current interruption, an arrester
The power distribution lines for electric trains generally op- absorbs the high overvoltage, but this absorption can present
erate in open-air environments, and thus, are vulnerable to potential risks for explosion. Besides these dangers, the me-
potential faults. DC fault current has no zero-current point, chanical lifetime of this vacuum circuit breaker is rather low,
which makes dc interruption challenging. The standard rated reduced by the necessary high-speed repulsion mechanism.
short-circuit currents for railway dc switchgear systems are Alternatively, we investigate using a superconducting fault-
current limiter (SFCL) to first restrict the fault-current, fol-
Manuscript received March 2, 2017; revised August 31, 2017; accepted Oc-
tober 21, 2017. Date of publication October 27, 2017; date of current version lowed by interruption using a conventional dc breaker [19]–
November 20, 2017. This work was supported in part by the National Basic [21]. The best choice breaker for this approach is the vacuum
Research Program of China (973 Program) under Grant 2015CB251005, and in circuit breaker, given its many benefits [21]. By current limit-
part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51323012
and Grant 51221005. This paper was recommended by Associate Editor A. Po- ing, the capacitance value used in the LC commutation circuit
lasek. (Corresponding author: Zhiyuan Liu.) can be reduced significantly. This implementation avoids the
The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation expensive saturable reactor and the less-reliable fast-operation
and Power Equipment, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
(e-mail: makun.yang@gmail.com; yangyi_isa@163.com; junaid@126.com; mechanisms (including the repulsion mechanism). Moreover,
931720980@qq.com; Liuzy@mail.xjtu.edu.cn; ysgeng@mail.xjtu.edu.cn; breakers experience less overvoltage spikes. For these reasons,
jhwang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn). this dc current interruption technology is a viable option for rail-
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. way traction systems, as proposed and described in this paper
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2017.2767500 using a dc vacuum circuit breaker and an SFCL.
1051-8223 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
5600108 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 28, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018
TABLE I
SUPERCONDUCTING TAPE SPECIFICATIONS
Manufactured by AMSC
Stabilizer Stainless Steel
Material YBCO
Width of the Superconducting Tape 12 mm
Critical Current 225 A at 77 K
Resistance at Room Temperature 0.11 /m
TABLE III
VACUUM INTERRUPTER PARAMETERS
Rated voltage 12 kV
Rated current 630 A
Short-circuit current 25 kA
Average speed 1 m/s Fig. 11. Time evolution of the experiment.
Gap length 11 mm
Fig. 12. Experimental waveforms for the prospective fault current of 47 kA. Fig. 13. Experimental waveforms for the prospective fault current of 23.5 kA.
TABLE V
TABLE IV EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS FOR DIFFERENT PROSPECTIVE CURRENTS
EXPERIMENTAL RESULT WITH DIFFERING INTERRUPTION TIMES
current increases, the quenching resistance of the SFCL in- [3] P.-C. Tan, P. C. Loh, and D. G. Holmes, “Optimal impedance termination
creases, resulting in a source current decrease. Notably, no mat- of 25-kV electrified railway systems for improved power quality,” IEEE
Trans. Power Del., vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 1703–1710, Apr. 2005.
ter how large the prospective current peak is, the SFCL can [4] E. Cinieri, A. Fumi, V. Salvatori, and C. Spalvieri, “A new high-speed
always limit the fault current below 2 kA within 6 ms. digital relay protection of the 3-kVdc electric railway lines,” IEEE Trans.
The interrupting current in the vacuum interrupter increases Power Del., vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 2262–2270, Oct. 2007.
[5] A. Steimel, “Electric railway traction in Europe,” IEEE Ind. Appl. Mag.,
as the prospective current peak increases. The maximum inter- vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 6–17, Nov./Dec. 1996.
ruption current of 1.84 kA occurs when the prospective current [6] M. Homma, M. Sakaki, E. Kaneko, and S. Yanabu, “History of vacuum
is 47 kA, which is only 4.6 times the rated current of the proto- circuit breakers and recent developments in Japan,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr.
Electr. Insul., vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 85–92, Feb. 2006.
type. [7] Railway Application – Fixed Installations – DC Switchgear – Part 1:
General, IEC Standard 61992-1, 2014.
[8] U. Drofenik and F. Canales, “European trends and technologies in trac-
VI. DISCUSSION tion,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Power Electron., Hiroshima, Japan, 2014,
pp. 1043–1049.
SFCLs restrict fault current to a level that dc vacuum circuit [9] H. Nakao et al., “DC current interruption in HVDC SF6 gas MRTB by
breakers can interrupt. This new interruption technology has means of self-excited oscillation superimposition,” IEEE Trans. Power
Del., vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 687–693, Oct. 2001.
four merits. [10] K. Tahata et al., “HVDC circuit breakers for HVDC grid applications,” in
1) The interruption current is not sensitive to the prospective Proc. 11th IET Int. Conf. AC DC Power Transmiss., 2015, pp. 44–52.
fault-current peak. Without the SFCL, the demand of the [11] J. M. Anderson and J. J. Carroll, “Applicability of a vacuum interrupter
as the basic switch element in HVDC breakers,” IEEE Trans. Power App.
interruption current could be 10 times that of the rated Syst., vol. PAS-97, no. 5, pp. 1893–1900, Sep. 1978.
breaker current, which is problematic for the dc circuit [12] J. Jadidian, “A compact design for high voltage direct current circuit
breaker [17]. With the SFCL, even when the prospective breaker,” IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci., vol. 37, no. 6, pp. 1084–1091,
Jun. 2009.
fault-current peak reaches 47 kA, the resulting interrup- [13] L. Liu, J. Zhuang, C. Wang, Z. Jiang, J. Wu, and B. Chen, “A hybrid DC
tion current is 1.84 kA, just 4.6 times the rated current. vacuum circuit breaker for medium voltage: Principle and first measure-
Thus, the interruption current range is restricted, ensuring ments,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 2096–2101, Oct. 2015.
[14] Z. Q. Shi, Y. K. Zhang, S. L. Jia, X. C. Song, L. J. Wang, and M. Chen,
a manageable interruption event. “Design and numerical investigation of A HVDC vacuum switch based on
2) The dc vacuum circuit breaker only needs to interrupt artificial current zero,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul., vol. 22, no. 1,
the small current limited by the SFCL. Thus, only small pp. 135–141, Feb. 2015.
[15] T. Qin, E. Dong, G. Liu, and J. Zou, “Recovery of dielectric strength after
reverse current is needed to create zero current. DC interruption in vacuum,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr. Insul., vol. 23,
3) The SFCL absorbs the short-circuit energy resulting in no. 1, pp. 29–34, Feb. 2016.
less over-voltage spikes during the interruption process. [16] Y. Niwa, J. Matsuzaki, and K. Yokokura, “The basic investigation of
the high-speed VCB and its application for the DC power system,” in
4) SFCLs can respond to faults very quickly. For this reason, Proc. 23rd Int. Symp. Discharges Elect. Insul. Vac., Bucharest, Romania,
dc vacuum circuit breakers do not need to open as rapidly, Sep. 2008, pp. 107–112.
which simplifies the design. [17] Y. Niwa, K. Yokokura, and J. Matsuzaki, “Fundamental investigation and
application of high-speed VCB for DC power system of railway,” in Proc.
24th Int. Symp. Discharges Elect. Insul. Vac., Braunschweig, Germany,
2010, pp. 125–128.
VII. CONCLUSION [18] S. Tokoyoda et al., “High frequency interruption characteristics of VCB
and its application to high voltage DC circuit breaker,” in Proc. 3rd Int.
This work proposes a dc current interruption technology Conf. Electr. Power Equip. Switch. Technol., Busan, South Korea, 2015,
for dc railway traction systems, involving a dc vacuum circuit pp. 117–121.
breaker with an SFCL. After describing the working principle, [19] Y. Morishita, T. Ishikawa, I. Yamaguchi, S. Okabe, G. Ueta, and S. Yanabu,
“Applications of DC breakers and concepts for superconducting fault-
this paper describes the design and testing of a 1.5-kV proto- current limiter for a DC distribution network,” IEEE Trans. Appl. Super-
type. During testing, the SFCL limited the fault current below cond., vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 3658–3664, Aug. 2009.
2 kA within 6 ms for prospective short-circuit currents up to [20] B. Xiang, Z. Liu, Y. Geng, and S. Yanabu, “DC circuit breaker using su-
perconductor for current limiting,” IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., vol. 25,
47 kA, and a dc vacuum circuit breaker successfully interrupted no. 2, Apr. 2015, Art. no. 5600207.
the limited current subsequently. [21] S. Liu, K. Yang, Y. Yang, Z. Liu, Y. Geng, and J. Wang, “Railway DC
The dc vacuum circuit breaker only needs to be designed to circuit breaker based on the superconducting fault current limiter,” in
Proc. 27th Int. Symp. Discharges Elect. Insul. Vac., Suzhou, China, 2016,
interrupt 2 kA, assisted by the SFCL. Therefore, the required vol. 2, pp. 300–303.
commutation circuit capacitance is quite low, and the rated cur- [22] K. Yang et al., “Design of superconducting tapes pancake type winding
rent interruption is maintained for small reverse currents. The dc according to heat diffusion ability,” IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., vol. 26,
no. 7, Oct. 2016, Art. no. 4902305.
vacuum circuit breaker is reliable and easy to design. Thus, a dc
SFCL combined with a dc vacuum circuit breaker is a suitable
combination for 750 V and 1.5 kV dc traction systems, and it
shows potential for use in higher dc-voltage systems.
Kun Yang was born in Xi’an, China, on August 7, 1989. He received the B.E.
REFERENCES degree in electrical engineering from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China,
in 2012. Since 2012, he has been studying for the successive postgraduate and
[1] H. W. Dickinson and A. Titley, “Introductory,” in Richard Trevithick: The doctoral programs degrees in electrical engineering in Xi’an Jiaotong Univer-
Engineer and The Man. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010. sity, Xi’an.
[2] R. J. Hill, “Electric railway traction. Part 3. Traction power supplies,” His research interests include dc superconducting fault current limiter tech-
Power Eng. J., vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 275–286, Dec. 1994. nology and new dc interruption technology.
5600108 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, VOL. 28, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018
Yi Yang received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from Xi’an Jiao- Zhiyuan Liu (M’01–SM’14) was born in Shenyang, China, in 1971. He received
tong University, Xi’an, China, in 2014, the French Engineer Degree (master’s the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Shenyang University
degree)from CentraleSupélec, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, in 2015. She is currently of Technology, Liaoning, China, in 1994 and 1997, respectively, and the Ph.D.
working toward the master’s degree in electrical engineering from the School degree in electrical engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China,
of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University. She also took part in the in 2001.
exchange program of double degrees with Supélec, Paris, France. From 2001 to 2002, he was in the General Electric Company Research
She did an internship from September 2015 to March 2016 in R&D Depart- and Development Center, Shanghai, China. Since 2003, he has been working in
ment, KEMA Laboratories, DNV GL, the Netherlands. She took part in high State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Department
voltage direct current system fault current project during that time. Her research of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an. He is currently a
interest includes dc interruption based on artificial current zero method. Professor in Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an.
Prof. Liu is a member of Current Zero Club and a member of CIGRE
Working Group WGA3.27 “The impact of the application of vacuum switchgear
at transmission voltages.” He is also a member of CIGRE Working Group
JWGA3/B4.34 “Technical requirements and specifications of state-of-the-art
Muhammad Junaid received the B.Eng. and M.S. degrees in electrical en- DC switching equipment.”
gineering from COMSATS institute of information technology with the spe-
cialization in power system engineering, in 2011 and 2015, respectively. He is Yingsan Geng (M’98–SM’14) was born in Henan Province, China, in 1963.
currently working toward the Doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
School of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China. Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi’an, China, in 1984, 1987, and 1997, re-
He has also served as a Lecturer in power engineering in the Department spectively.
of Electrical Engineering, Sarhad University of Science and Information Tech- He is currently a Professor in the State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insula-
nology, Peshawar, Pakistan. His research interests include key technologies for tion and Power Equipment, Department of Electrical Engineering, XJTU. His
fault current interruption using vacuum interrupters and cryogenic fluids. research interests include theory and application of low voltage circuit breaker
Mr. Junaid is an active member of IAENG Hong Kong, Pakistan Engineering and high voltage vacuum circuit breakers.
Council, and the Institute of Engineers Pakistan.
Jianhua Wang (SM’14) received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical en-
gineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi’an, China, in 1981 and
1985, respectively.
He is currently a Professor and the Director in the State Key Laboratory of
Siyuan Liu was born in Harbin, China, on May 31, 1990. He received the Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Department of Electrical Engineer-
B.E. degree in electrical engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology, ing, XJTU. His research interests include theory and application of intelligent
Harbin, in 2013. Since 2013, he has been working toward the Ph.D. degree electrical apparatus and systems, and CAD/CAE in electrical engineering.
in electrical engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Xi’an Dr. Wang is the Chairman of the Professional Branch Committee on Intelli-
Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China. gent Electrical Systems and their Applications of the China Electro-Technical
His research interests include dc circuit breaker with active injection and Society, and an Associate Council Member of the China Electro-Technical
vacuum arc theory. Society.