Robust 5 kA, 1 kV Solid-State DC Circuit Breaker for Next Generation Marine Power Systems

Investigation of Limitations in Passive Voltage Clamping-Based Solid-State DC Circuit Breakers

“…It shows that power shock increases rapidly with the fault current, from 10.5 kW at 200 A to 256.4 kW at 1.2 kA. When the fault current reaches 2 kA, power shock is estimated to achieve 740.7 kW, which has a high risk to cause transient overheat of the power module, especially when the SSCB has already operated at high current rating for a relatively long time in real applications [30], [34], [39]. It validates the limitation of an MOV-RCD passive voltage clamping circuit in protecting an SSCB, especially at high-current and long-time operation scenarios.…”

“…For example, even when the snubber capacitance is as high as 600 nF, the power shock still reaches 122 kW at 1 kA fault current. In a real application, there is a risk to cause switch transient overheat [30], [34], [39] in a more severe fault current scenario as indicated in Fig. 18.…”