Characterization of Clamp-On Current Transformers Under Nonsinusoidal Conditions

This paper reports the performance of clamp-on current transformers under nonsinusoidal conditions. A set of experimental measurements helped to determine the ratio and the phase errors under two conditions: 1) sinusoidal excitation with frequencies from 45 to 1000 Hz and 2) nonsinusoidal excitation using the fundamental frequency and one harmonic, with adjusted phase shift. It was found that ratio and phase errors are affected by the phase angle between the harmonic and the fundamental and the harmonic amplitude. The effects of conductor location in the current transformer's window and of the air-gap width were also investigated. It was concluded that harmonic phase and ratio errors measured in nonsinusoidal conditions can be higher than the ones determined by the frequency response.