High Current Solid State Circuit Breaker for DC Shipboard Power Systems

We present the design and experimental validation of a high current solid state circuit breaker for DC shipboard power systems. All-electric commercial and combatant ships are becoming increasingly popular where DC power distribution enables efficient distribution of power between primary sources and loads. However, the power requirements and the performance of the DC distribution system requires very fast fault protection in order to provide protection selectivity, high survivability, and reconfigurability after a fault event. Solid state DC circuit breakers can react and limit fault current at least one order of magnitude faster than electromechanical and hybrid solution, especially when the fault detection and isolation time requirements is 1 ms or less. The solid state circuit DC breaker presented here is based on RB-IGCT semiconductor technology which deliver efficiency as high as 99.9%. Moreover, the solid state DC circuit breaker can detect a fault current in less than 10 $\mu$s, limit the fault current in less than 20 $\mu$s, and dissipate all the fault energy in less than 500 $\mu$s for a wide range of system inductance and short circuit time constants.