Study on Sustainable Current-Limiting Capability of a Saturation-Based dc I-SFCL Prototype

If the inductive superconducting fault current limiter (I-SFCL) cannot maintain its current-limiting capacity before the dc fault is isolated, it will lead to a secondary fault in the dc system, and cause an impact on the system primary equipment. Therefore, the study of sustainable current-limiting capability is an important aspect in the dc SFCL researches. In this paper, the sustainable current-limiting capability of a saturation-based dc I-SFCL prototype was discussed in details. Through the dc current-limiting performance experiments, it is found that the sustainable current-limiting capability of this type of SFCL has a negative correlation with its reverse saturation degree, which can be affected by the design parameters. The influence factors of reverse saturation were first analyzed through the mathematical model of this prototype. Afterward, combined with the experiments, the sustainable current-limiting capability of the proposed dc I-SFCL is fully explored by changing the coil current and the number of turns, which offers a reference for parameter design of I-SFCL in the future engineering application.