Simulating Thermal Phenomena Occurring in Fast Electric Fuses Used for Power Electronic Protection

This article presents a thermal analysis of fast electric fuses used for power electronic protection. By comparison of different quenching media to the quartz sand, there are presented recordings of voltage and current waveforms when the circuit breaks down due to the ultra-fast fuses with a rated current of 100 A. Considering the analogy between the electrical and thermal, similarly to the power semiconductors, it is analyzed the thermal condition in the fuses. The calculation of the fuse transient heating is done by OrCAD PSpice 9.0 software, where, given the analogy between the electric and thermal quantities, is simulated the fuse heating. In order to evaluate the thermal field in ultrafast fuses, the FLUX2D 7.40/6 simulation program was used. The thermal field variation along the whole fast fuse body and along the fuselink are presented and analyzed.