Research on Ultra-Fast Resonant DC Circuit Breaker

The objective of this proposal is to develop an ultra-fast compact lightweight resonant direct-current circuit breaker that can enable the promising low-cost high-efficiency direct current (DC) power systems in many applications, such as electric aircrafts, electric ships, and renewable energy DC power systems. DC systems have many benefits over traditional alternating current (AC) systems such as lower cost, higher efficiency, and higher power capacity. Despite these advantages, DC based systems have lacked market adoption. A significant barrier to market adoption is the lack of adequate breakers for DC fault protection. This proposed DC circuit breaker solution combines the advantages of a vacuum interrupter (high efficiency) with the emerging wide band-gap semiconductor device based resonant current source (fast response time and zero current switching of vacuum interrupter) and novel actuator topology (high force and fast response time) to produce a DC breaker that has a 4X faster response time, a 1.3X increase in power density, and a 1.3X increase of lifetime compared to current DC circuit breakers. The proposed solution represents a transformational state of the art DC breaker that is scalable across voltage and current in medium-voltage dc (MVDC) applications.