Fast Repetitive Arc Free Current Limiting Circuit Breaker--UTRON, Inc., 8506 Wellington Road, Suite 200, Manassas, VA 20109-3915; 703-369-5552
Dr. F. Douglas Witherspoon, Principal Investigator
Mr. Dennis Massey, Business Official
DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-99ER82915
Amount: $749,768

The Department of Energy (DOE) seeks fault protection devices that will effectively limit the current damage to radio frequency (RF) tubes during fault conditions associated with fusion plasma heating. This project will develop a new innovative circuit breaker capable of fast, arc-free current interruption. In a fault situation, the circuit breaker will limit the energy to RF tubes to less than a few joules at heating power levels of 10-50 MW. This was demonstrated experimentally in Phase I on a small scale in a single shot mode by interrupting 11 kA in less than 500 microseconds at about 13 MW. A current limiting circuit breaker device was fabricated utilizing a pulsed power source to separate the contacts with very high acceleration. This device successfully interrupted current in excess of 10 kA at standoff voltages over 1 kV in less than 500 microseconds. Experimentation with the Phase I device will be continued in the early part of Phase II. Then, a series of devices of ever increasing interruption performance will be built and tested. The goal of Phase II is to interrupt currents as high as 100 kA at power levels as high as 10-50 MW in a few hundred microseconds.

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: Successful development of this device will result in faster arc-free opening switches/circuit breakers for both the commercial power industry and pulsed power applications, with longer component lifetimes, smaller physical size, and lower cost than currently available switches.

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