Practical selection of AC Fuses for the DC-Link in Voltage Commutated Inverters etc.

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It is normal practice to use AC fuses in the DC circuit of voltage commutated inverters of the common DC-bus systems type etc, and very often two fuses are used for the protection and isolating in front of each inverter one in the input and one in the output of the DC-inlet. To find a suitable Typower Zilox AC-fuse for such a system guide lines for the selection of Rated AC-Voltage of the fuse should be followed. This involves considerations on DC voltage level together with size and rise time of the available short circuit current. The higher and faster the short circuit current will be, the easier the fuse will be able to handle the DC fault, because it tends to be similar to those AC cases where the fuse is also handling the fault without being depending of a zero passing of the system voltage. Normally when dimensioning the Rated Voltage of the fuse for a given application only one fuse should be expected to clear the fault in all situations. But in cases where a high and consistent short circuit level is present, the breaking capacity of two exactly equal fuses, being in series in the same short circuit path, can be combined, and thus enabling fault clearing under a higher DC-system voltage than with only one fuse inserted. If two equal Typower Zilox AC Fuses under specified conditions are used in a low inductance DC-system following max appliable DC-Voltage levels are possible: 660V AC - 690V AC Fuse Serie : max . 900V DC 1000VAC 1250V AC Fuse Serie : max . 1400V DC 1. The combination of pulse front di/dt and level of short circuit current should be able to melt the fuses within 10ms. The actual melting time can be found through calculation of the I2t of the short circuit current as a function of time until the specified fuse pre-arcing integral is reached, refer to table in the datasheet, this will work fine for times less than say 1ms. A more precise way of doing it especially for longer times, is to draw the rmsvalue of the short as a function of real time directly onto the ac melting curve of the fuse, and find the actual melting time at the crossing point between the the two curves. This melting time should be less than 10ms. Please refer to HSF Application Guide p.10 2. The two fuses in question should be very equal thermally loaded, which means the cooling and loading conditions should be the same. If the two fuses are not running under the same thermal conditions the risk exist that they will share the restriking voltage Edc * unequally and thereby call for a higher safety margin than used in the above given DC voltage levels. High Amp rated fuses with reduced ACvoltage: The DC-system voltages stated above should be reduced if the actual fuse has a rated voltage lower than the voltage rating for the respective serie. The reduction of max appliable DC-Voltage should be equivalent to the derating in rated AC-Voltage.

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In order to be sure that the stated DC-breaking capacity of the fuses is valid following conditions should be checked:

*) Please bear in mind, that there could be a theoretical risk that one of the fuses due to cyclic fatigue etc melts faster than the other, and this could
lead to miss operation in a worst case fault situation.