• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.30-34
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• 2016

In this study, a SFCL-combined DC circuit breaker system was proposed by applying the current-limiting technology for DC circuit breaking. The SFCL-combined circuit breaker system consists of a mechanical DC circuit breaker combined with superconductors. To ensure the reliable structure and operation of the SFCL-combined circuit breaker system, a simulation grid was designed using the EMTDC/PSCAD program, and simulation was conducted. The results showed that the SFCL-combined DC circuit breaker system with superconductors limited the maximum fault current by 37%. In addition, the burden on the DC circuit breaker was decreased by 87%.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.19-23
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• 2021

We have studied the breaking system that combines a resistive superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) and a DC circuit breaker for DC fault current. To verify the design of the 15 kV DC SFCL, which was driven from the previous work, a 500 V DC system was built and a scale-down SFCL were manufactured. The manufactured SFCL module was designed as a bifilar coil which is a structure that minimizes inductive reactance. The manufactured SFCL module has been experiment to verify characteristics of the current-limiting performance in the DC 500 V system. Also, the manufactured FCL module was combined with the DC circuit breaker to be experimented to analyze the breaking performance. As a result of the experiment, when SFCL was combined to the DC circuit breaker, the energy dissipation received by the DC circuit breaker was reduced by up to 84% compared to when the DC circuit breaker operates alone. We are preparing methods and experiments for the optimal method for much higher performance as a future work.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.68 no.1
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• pp.215-219
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• 2019

Development of DC interruption technology is being studied actively for enhanced DC grid reliability and stability. In this study, coil type superconductor DC circuit breaker was proposed as DC interruption. It is integration technology that combined current-limiting technique using superconductor and cut-off technique using mechanical DC circuit breaker. Superconductor was applied to the coil type. In simulation, Mayr arc model was applied to realize the arc characteristic in the mechanical DC circuit breaker. PSCAD/EMTDC had used to model and perform the simulation. To find out the protection range of coil type superconductor DCCB, the working operation have analyzed based on the rated voltage of DCCB. The results confirmed that, according to apply the limiting device, the protection range was increased in twice. Therefore, the probability of failure of interruption has lowered significantly.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.39-43
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• 2019

The breaking of a circuit in DC grid could pose a challenge because of the absence of zero-crossing instant for both current and voltage when a fault occurs. An additional fault current limiting function will be very helpful for reducing the burden of the DC circuit breaker by limiting the fault current to a reasonable value. In this paper, we studied the overcurrent characteristics of several HTS conductors so that we could use the selected conductors for the basic design work of a resistive type fault current limiting module as a part of the circuit breaking system. According to the short-circuit test results, we suggested and compared two different basic design parameters of the HTS fault current limiting module, which will be connected in series to the DC circuit breaker.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.595-599
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• 2018

Interruption system with the transformer type superconducting fault current limiter(TSFCL) is proposed in this paper. The interruption system with a TSFCL is a technology that it maximizes the interruption function of a mechanical DC circuit breaker using a transformer and a superconducting fault current limiter. By a TSFCL, the system limits the fault current till the breakable current range in the fault state. Therefore, the fault current could be cut off by a mechanical DC circuit breaker. The Interruption system with a TSFCL were designed using PSCAD/EMTDC. In addition, the Interruption system with a TSFCL was applied to the DC test circuit to analyze characteristics of a current-limiting and a interruption operation. The simulation results showed that the Interruption system with a TSFCL interrupted the fault current in a stable when a fault occurred. Also, The current-limiting rate of the Interruption system with a TSFCL was approximately 69.55%, and the interruption time was less than 8 ms.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1069-1074
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• 2020

Since DC has no zero point, an arc occurs when the DC circuit breaker performs a shutdown operation. In this case, a fatal accident may occur in the circuit breaker or in the grid, depending on the magnitude of the arc. Therefore, the shutdown performance and the reliability of the circuit breaker are important in the commercialization of HVDC. In this study, a superconducting LC circuit breaker was proposed to improve the performance and the reliability of the DC circuit breaker. The superconducting LC circuit breaker applied a superconducting coil to the inductor of the existing LC circuit breaker. Other than limiting the initial fault current, it also creates a stable zero point in the event of a fault current. To verify this, simulation was performed through EMTDC/PSCAD. Furthermore, the superconducting LC circuit breaker was compared with the LC circuit breaker with a normal coil. As a result, it was found that the LC circuit breaker with the superconducting coil limited the initial fault current further by approximately 12 kA compared to the LC circuit breaker with a normal coil. This reduced the arc extinguish time by approximately 0.16 sec, thereby decreasing the elctrical power burden on the circuit breaker.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.1-7
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• 2003

Nowadays, one of the serious problems in KEPCO(Korea Electric Power Co-Operation) system is the more higher fault current than the SCC(Short Circuit Capacity) of circuit breaker. There are many alternatives to reduce the increased fault current such as isolations of bus ties, enhancement of SCC of circuit breaker, applications of HVDC-BTB(High Voltage Direct Current-Back to Back) and FCL(fault current limiter). But, these alternatives have some drawbacks in viewpoints of system stability and cost. As the superconductivity technology has been developed, the HTS-FCL(High Temperature Superconductor -Fault Current Limiter) can be one of the attractive alternatives to solve the fault current problem. Under this background, this paper presents the EMTDC(Electro-Magnetic Transient Direct Current) model for resistance type HTS-FCL considering the nonlinear characteristic of final resistance value when quenching phenomena occur.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2015.07a
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• pp.396-397
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• 2015

With the increasing utilization of high-voltage, direct current (HVDC) transmissions in modern power systems, the DC grid is becoming a hot topic in academic and practical systems. In the DC grid, one of the urgent problems is the fast clearance of the DC fault in the DC network. One preferred method is to isolate the faulty point from the DC network in a short time. The DC circuit breaker is to interrupt the overcurrent after DC faults occur. In this paper, a self-excited resonant DC circuit breaker is an easy and cheap equipment to interrupt the DC fault current. The Mayr's arc model is utilized to simulate the self-excited DC circuit breaker in a DC test system in PSCAD/EMTDC.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.12-19
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• 2022

Circuit breakers are a crucial factor in ensuring the safety of a Direct Current (DC) grid. One type of DC circuit breaker, the Z-source DC circuit breaker (ZCB), uses a thyristor, which is a type of semiconductor switch. In the event of a fault in the circuit, the ZCB isolates the fault by generating a zero crossing current in the thyristor. The thyristor quickly and actively isolates the fault while generating a zero crossing current, but thyristor switch cannot control turn-off and the allowable current is lower than the current of the mechanical switch. Therefore, it is best to use a mechanical switch with a high allowable current capacity that is capable of on/off control. Due to the slow reaction time of mechanical switches, they may not isolate the fault during the zero crossing current time interval created by the existing circuit. In this case, the zero crossing current time can be increased by using the property that hinders the rapid change in the current of the inductor. This paper will explore whether adding system inductance to increase the zero crossing current time interval is a solution to this problem. The simulation of changing inductor and capacitor (LC) of the circuit is repeated to find an optimal change in the zero crossing current time according to the LC change and provides an inductor and capacitor range optimized for a specific load. The inductor and capacitor range are expected to provide optimization information in the form LC values for future applications of ZCB's using a mechanical switch.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers A
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.284-292
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• 2005

Because all of the short-circuit testing laboratories have the limitation of test facilities, the synthetic making test methods have been used to estimate the short-circuit making performance of the ultra high-voltage circuit breaker as the alternative to direct test methods. So, KERI(Korea Eelctrotechnology Research institute) has completed the construction of the synthetic making test facilities using the low capacity step-up transformer method which fulfill the requirements specified in newly revised IEC 62271-100 Edition 1.1(2003) and have the testing capability up to 550kV, 63kA full-pole circuit breaker. The test facilities using the low capacity step-up transformer method presented in this paper are made up of the unit equipments such as HCS(High-speed Closing Switch), ITMC(Initial Transient Making Current) circuit and UP TR(low capacity step-up transformer) and have the operating range of 17.6$^{\circ}$ $\~$ 145.1$^{\circ}$ for testing the circuit breaker rated on up to 50kA and 43.1$^{\circ}$ $\~$ 119.6$^{\circ}$ for more than 50kA.