XXVIIth Int. Symp.

on Discharges and Electrical Insulation in Vacuum – Suzhou - 2016

Experimental Investigation on HVDC Vacuum

Circuit Breaker Based on Artificial Current Zero
Yingkui Zhang, Zongqian Shi, Qiaosen Wang, Zhanpeng Gao, Shenli Jia, Lijun Wang
The State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049
China

Abstract- With the development of HVDC technology, the closed. Then a high-frequency oscillating commutation
demand of HVDC circuit breaker is becoming urgent, current, which is superimposed on the current of the
whereas, a commercial HVDC circuit breaker is still not MCB, can be generated by the discharge of C through L,
available. A prototype of HVDC circuit breaker based on S and the arc in MCB. Then, the arc burning in the
artificial current zero and its testing scheme is proposed in MCB can be extinguished at the zero crossing of the
this paper. Then the DC interruption experiment is carried current. Due to the excellent insulating and arc
on. In the DC interruption experiment, an 8kA DC current quenching capability, vacuum circuit breaker (VCB) is
is interrupted and the interruption process is analyzed. In often used as the main circuit breaker of DC
the experiment, LC source is used as the current source, interruption based on artificial current zero. For
and two vacuum interrupters are connected in series to convenience, this DC interruption method is called as
form the main circuit breaker. Experiments are conducted the vacuum DC interruption based on artificial current
to interrupt current of 8kA with the peak of the transient zero in this paper. This method has been applied in low
interruption voltage up to 110kV. voltage DC systems [4].
Even though vacuum DC interruption based on
I. INTRODUCTION artificial current zero has been proposed and studied for
decades, it is still not applied in HVDC system so far
As a new way of power transmission, the
[5-9]. Furthermore, a unified testing standard for HVDC
high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission
circuit breaker is not available. In general, LC source is
technology developed in the mid-20th century has been
adopted to provide current for the experiments of
widely used. The multi-terminal HVDC (MTDC)
HVDC circuit breakers.
transmission technology based on the voltage source
In present work, a prototype of HVDC vacuum
converter (VSC), which has multiple power supply to
circuit breaker based on artificial current zero is
transfer power to multiple terminals, can achieve
designed. Experiments are conducted using a LC current
efficient power transmission. When multiple AC power
source. The experimental results are presented and
systems are interconnected and transmit power to
analyzed.
multiple electrical terminals, multiple two-terminal
HVDC transmission lines are needed, which will
II. HVDC VACUUM CIRCUIT BREAKER PRPTOTYPE
increase the investment and operating costs. The
multi-terminal MTDC transmission technology supplies AND EXPERIMENTAL CONFIGURATION
a good solution to this problem. However, once the
An experimental circuit using LC circuit as the
short-circuit fault happens within the VSC-based
current source is designed as shown in Fig. 1.
MTDC transmission system, the short-circuit current
The current source consists of the capacitor C0,
rises rapidly due to the small short-circuit impedance. In
inductance L0, and the triggered gap GP.
this condition, the system requires fast HVDC circuit
The prototype of HVDC vacuum circuit breaker
breaker to isolate the fault to avoid damage to the DC
consists of the main circuit breaker, the commutation
system and maintain proper voltage within the
branch, the MOV branch, and the back-up circuit
VSC-based MTDC transmission system. Therefore, fast
breaker.
HVDC circuit breaker has become a bottleneck for the
The main circuit breaker is composed of two modules
development of VSC-based MTDC transmission system
in series. Each module consists of a VCB (VCB1 and
[1-3].
VCB2) with the equalizing capacitor (C1 and C2) and the
The principle of DC interruption based on artificial
equalizing resistance (R1 and R2). They are used to
current zero consists of a commutation branch, which is
suppress the high-frequency oscillation of the transient
composed of a pre-charged commutation capacitor C, a
interruption voltage across the main circuit breaker and
commutation inductance L and a commutation switch S,
equalize the voltage between the two VCBs [9]. Each
connected with the main circuit breaker (MCB) in
VCB is driven by a high-speed mechanism based on the
parallel. To interrupt the circuit, the MCB is opened
principle of electromagnetic repulsion.
firstly. While the contacts gap of the MCB reaches
A triggered sphere gap is adopted as the commutation
certain safe stroke region, the commutation switch is

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switch. The inherent characteristic of the triggered
sphere gap that it has very weak arc extinguishing
capacity is utilized to implement bi-directional
interruption [6, 9].
The back-up circuit breakers AB is connected on one
side of the MCB. It’s used to interrupt the residual
current caused by the weak arc extinguishing ability of
the triggered sphere gap [9].
In the experiments, the voltage across the main circuit
breaker and the commutation capacitor, and the current
flowing in the main circuit break, the commutation
branch and the MOV is measured.
GP L0 AB
C0
MOV
ia
is
Fig. 1. The diagram of experimental circuit
The prototype of the HVDC vacuum circuit breaker
in experiments is shown in Fig. 2.
metal oxide arrester
(MOV) commutation inductance
(L)
commutation capacitance (C)
commutation switch (S)
Fig. 2. HVDC vacuum circuit breaker prototype
III. EXPERIMENT RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
In the first stage of experimental research, the
protection voltage of the arrester is limited to 50kV to
investigate the basic function of the prototype.
The experimental current is supplied by LC source
with C0=3.75mF, L0=2.7mH. The charging voltage of
C0 is 9kV.
The parameters of the commutation branch are as
follows. C=11μF with charging voltage 22kV, L=54μH.
The experimental results are shown in Fig. 4 and Fig.
5. The interruption process is described below.
t=0: The system is in the initial state. The capacitor of
the experimental source is pre-charged to 9kV.
t1: The triggered gap GP is trigged and the
experimental current occurs. The monitor and control
unit detects the fault, and then sends the opening
command to the actuator of each module of MCB,
which begins to drive contacts to open with quick
response, and vacuum arc is formed in MCB.
t2: The system current increases to about 8kA, and the
contacts gap of each MCB module reaches certain safe
stroke to withstand the transient recovery voltage. Then,
the commutation switch is triggered to inject
high-frequency oscillating commutation current.
t2-t3: The current gradually transfers from the MCB to
commutation branch. During this stage, the
commutation capacitor keeps discharging and its
voltage drops continuously. This is the first
commutation process.
t3: The first commutation process is completed. The
+um current transferred to the commutation branch
S
R1 completely. The arc in MCB extinguishes at the forced
VCB1
C1 current zero. Transient recovery voltage, the rising rate
L
of which is suppressed by RC snubber branch, is
R2
VCB2 +uc generated across each MCB module.
C2 C t3-t4: The commutation capacitor continues to
im
discharge with decreasing voltage toward zero, after
I I ic I
which it begins to be charged reversely with increasing
positive voltage. In this process, the voltage across
MCB modules also increases following the increase of
capacitor voltage.
t4: The MOVs begin to take effect as the voltage
across the MCB modules rises up to the protection
voltage of the MOV. Then, system current begins to
transfer from the commutation branch to MOV branch.
t4-t5: The current transfer from commutation branch
to MOV branch gradually. This is the second
commutation process.
t5: The current is transferred to MOV completely.
main circuit breaker
This is the first time that the current in commutation
(MCB) branch, i.e., in the triggered sphere gap, crosses current
zero. It should be noted that if an auto-switch-off
commutation switch is adopted, the arc in commutation
switch can be extinguished as well at this current zero as
shown in the experimental and simulation results in [4,
5]. However, since the triggered sphere gap has very
weak arc extinguishing capacity, the arc in it could keep
burning after ignition even at current zero crossing
unless its current flow is cut off by other switches.
Therefore, after this current zero, residual current can
still flow in the commutation branch.
t5-t6: A high-frequency oscillating current with
decreasing magnitude flows through the commutation
branch and MOV branch. In this process, the total
system current, which is equal to the sum of the current
flowing in MOV branch and commutation branch,
decreases rapidly. In this duration, since the inductance
of the experimental source is much higher than the
commutation inductance, the commutation current
mainly flows through the MOV branch. The frequency
of the commutation current slightly decreases because
of the equivalent resistance of the circuit. The path of
the commutation current can be simplified as shown in
Fig. 5. The frequency of the commutation current can be
estimated by the Formula (1), where Ra and Rs are the
resistance of the MOV and the arc of the triggered t6-t7: The system current completely flows through
sphere gap, respectively. From the experimental the commutation branch. Its frequency is mainly
waveform, the frequency of the commutation current is determined by the commutation capacitor and the
about 5128 Hz in this period. Therefore, the equivalent inductance of the experimental source.
resistance of the circuit, i.e., Ra+RS, is about 2.7 Ω. t7: The contacts of back-up circuit breakers are
t6: The total system current drops to zero along with opened, and the residual current is interrupted.
the cut off of the MOV.
2
Ra
1  Ra  RS 
 
LC  2 L  (1) ic
fc 
2
10
RS L C
current/kA

5 is
im im is Fig. 5. The path of the commutation current flowing through
during t5 -t6 ( R a: the equivalent resistance of the arrester,
0 Rs: equivalent resistance of the commutation switch, L:
t1 t2~t5 t6 t7
commutation inductance, C: commutation capacitor)
10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

In the second stage of experiment, the protection

current/kA

5
ic voltage of the arrester is raised to 110kV. The typical
0
experimental result is shown in Fig. 6. It demonstrates
-5 t2~t5 t6 that the DC circuit breaker prototype with two breaks
t1 t7
can interrupt the current of 8kA with the recovery
15 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
voltage across the MCB up to 110kV.
current/kA

10 10
ia
5 is
5
current/kA

t1 t2~t5 t6
0 t7 is im
im
100 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
0
voltage/kV

t6
50 um uc t1 t2~t5 t7
um -5
0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
100
t1 uc t2~t5 t6 t7 um
-50
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 50
voltage/kV

um uc
time/ms
0
Fig. 3. experimental result of 8 kA DC current interruption (is:
system current, ia: arrester current, im: MCB current, ic: -50 uc
commutation current, um: voltage across the main circuit t1 t2~t5 t6 t7
breaker, uc: voltage across the commutation capacitor)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
time/ms

120 Fig. 6. Experimental results of 8kA DC interruption with

ia arrester protection voltage up to 110kV.
100
is
im is
voltage/kV，current/100A

80
is
IV. CONCLUSION
60
A prototype of HVDC vacuum circuit breaker is
40 um
ic im developed. Experiments are carried out with LC circuit
20
uc as the current source.
um Experimental results indicate that the prototype with
0
two high-speed VCBs in series as the main circuit
-20
uc ic breaker can interrupted current of 8kA with the peak of
-40 transient interruption voltage up to 110kV.
-60
t2 t3 t4 t5 Due to the weak arc extinguishing capacity of the
3.8 3.9 4 4.1 4.2
time/ms triggered sphere gap, an oscillating residual current is
formed after the current zero of the main circuit breaker.
Fig. 4. Detailed experimental result of 8 kA DC current Therefore, a back-up circuit breaker is necessary to
interruption interrupt the residual current.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The research was supported in part by the National
High Technology Research and Development Program
of China (863 Program) under Project 2013AA050103,
by the National Science Foundation of China under
project 51325705 and 51322706.
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E-mail of the author(s): zqshi@mail.xjtu.edu.cn