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EXPANDING THE MEASUREMENT CAPABILITY FOR AC-DC CURRENT TRANSFER AT BEV
M. Garcocz, P. Scheibenreiter, W. Waldmann, G. Heine
Bundesamt fir Eich- und Vermessungswesen
Arltgasse 35, A-1 160 Vienna, Austria
Abstract
To expand the measurement capability up to 100 A at
100 kHz a construction for current shunts and Tee-
connectors has been made, calculated and manufactured
up to 40 A until now.
Introduction
For the measurement of ac current, the transfer to the dc
quantity at the most accurate level of uncertainty is
performed with ac-dc current shunts, connected in parallel
with thermal converters. Up to 20 A commercial shunts
with an ac-dc transfer difference of some 100 iA/A at
100 kHz are available. At higher current levels the transfer
difference increases significantly because the inductivity
becomes the main part of the impedance in constructions
shown so far. Another problem is the limited compliance
voltage of commercial current sources, which easily can
make it impossible to drive the connection leads, the Tee-
connector and two shunts in a comparison at 100 A and
100 kHz.
Hiuh Current Tee Connector
As the first step, a high current low inductive Tee-
connector has been constructed and manufactured. It is
made of three layers of copper arranged in a honeycomb-
construction surrounded by a brass housing, isolated with
approx. 0.2 mm of PTFE- foil to achieve a small loop in
the current path (fig. 1).
-uh -otential
intermediate
Iow pot.(housng)
Fig. 1: high current tee
0-7803-8493-8/04/$20.00 ©2004 IEEE
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Measurements showed an overall voltage drop of less than
3 V for the Tee including 3 connectors type LC at 100 A
and 100 kHz, which paved the way for the following
shunt construction.
High Current Shunts
To achieve the lowest possible inductivity, a coaxial
construction has been chosen with high current input at
one side and output to thermal converter at the opposite
side. Around a cylindric core made of glass fibre epoxy a
manganine foil is wound as the resistive element. One
copper foil at the outside brings the low potential back to
the current input, another copper foil underneath the
manganine brings the high potential from the input to the
output side. All foils are soldered onto copper discs which
are mechanically connected to the core. At least
disassembled coaxial connectors are screwed into the high
potential discs and mounted onto the low potential discs
(fig. 2).
pothigh manganine pot.bw
Fig. 2: high current shunt
Beginning with a shunt of nominal 20 A, the same
construction applies up to 100 A, with linear increasing of
the diameter as the current increases. Shunts for 20 A and
40 A have been made so far, with a voltage drop of 0.4 V
at nominal current.
Medium and Small Current Shunts
The shunts in the range from 2A to 10A follow the
principle shown above. The main difference is that the
core is made of a brass tube which replaces the inner
copper foil.
Small current shunts in the range from 10 mA to 1 A have The voltage dependence of the thermal converters used
been made with metal film resistors soldered in parallel in has been substracted from the transfer difference of the
a 4-terminal arrangement with a small loop in both the shunt- converter combination [2]. One possible
current and potential path (fig. 3). explanation for the difference of the measured and
calculated values lies in the very simplified model, which
does not cover all possible contributions like skin- effect
_l - _
, . . . . . . . . .~ ~ ~- - - - -d or inductance in leads and discs, further the connection
between shunt and converter and in the mechanical
scattering of the fabrication process.
Fig. 3: low current shunt Measurement Uncertaintv
Shunt Model The uncertainties for a coverage factor of approx. 95% for
selected points are given in table 1.
A simplified model of the resistive, inductive and
capacitive components of the active part of the high 10 kHz 50 kHz 100 kHz
current shunts have been made and calculated (fig. 4). IA 17 20 31
Various versions have been tested with the model to IOA 22 25 37
choose proper materials and dimensions for the shunts. 40 A 24 30 43
The influence of the inductivity in contrast to capacitive
contributions was found to be about 100 times larger. Table 1: measurement uncertainty in gAJA

L~/1A
Further Work
8 A L/8 A A L 8A L118A

L1/8 1/8 L /8 L /8 Ul Shunts with nominal currents of 80 A and 100 A will be

made up to the end of 2004. The contribution to the
C. C.c/i C, U, transfer difference of the connection between shunt and
thermal converter as well as the potential path within the
Fig. 4; shunt model shunts has to be investigated in more detail.

SteDup Procedure Conclusions

The stepup procedure has been performed with a potential
driven circuit [1] to minimize differences when
interchanging the shunts on high and low potential. Both
singlejunction and multijunction thermal converters have
been employed. Below 100 mA a voltage source was used
to achieve nominal current through the converters.
Results
Current shunts in the range from 10 mA to 100 A have
been constructed and the ac-dc transfer difference
evaluated in the frequency range from 10 Hz up to
100 kHz. Special Tee connectors have been made to
match the circuit with the limited compliance voltage of
the current source. The introduction of a potential driven
circuit has decreased the measurement uncertainty by a
factor of 6 at the highest frequencies.

The ac-dc transfer difference of two shunts with nominal Acknowledgements

current 40 A is shown in fig. 5.
The advice of M. Klonz, PTB Germany, and K.E. Rydler,
SP Sweden, on many aspects of ac-dc current
40 measurements is warmly acknowledged.

20 - BEV40A/ ,*, References

1 0-A_--1 -AU*4
-10 -i [1] K.E.Rydler, "High Precision Automated Measuring System
-20 * calculated T for AC-DC current Transfer Standards", IEEE Trans. Instr.
10 - o f[kHz] 100 Meas., Vol. 42, pp. 608-61 1, April 1993.
[2] J.R.Kinard, T.E.Lipe, C.B.Childers, "AC-DC Difference
Relationships for Current Shunt and Thermal Converter
Fig. 5: ac-dc transfer difference of shunts 40 A Combinations", IEEE Trans. Instr. Meas., Vol. 40,
pp. 352-355, April 1991.

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