Thermal performance of back-up current-limiting fuses

The design and development of current-limiting power fuses requires considerable time and expense on testing to verify that the maximum temperature limits under the rated current established in international standards are not exceeded. This paper presents a new methodology that reproduces the thermal behaviour of high voltage current-limiting fuses under currents up to the rated value and so, it reduces the need for testing as prototypes, more similar to the final design, can be obtained. Firstly, the methodology solves the transient heating process of the fuse to obtain the values of the power dissipated and the heat transfer coefficient, corresponding to the steady state condition. Once these values have been calculated, the temperature distribution at the surface of the complete fuse is obtained. The validity of the method proposed has been verified by comparison of the numerical values calculated with those obtained by testing real fuses. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.