Title :
A cost effective battery bank for I2t testing and evaluation of electrical switchgear
Author_Institution :
Los Alamos Nat. Lab., NM, USA
Abstract :
The electrical design and mechanical construction of a 50-kA step-switched battery bank is described. Individual fuses protect each of the 40 parallel isolated strings of three series (12-V) batteries. Step current waveforms of 12.5 kA, 25 kA, 37.5 kA, and 50 kA are produced by eight sets of pneumatically driven 20-pole step switches and current-limiting stainless steel trombone resistors. Group 65 Motorcraft car batteries are used to give an I2t capability of better than 5×109. The battery bank has well over 1500 shots, with testing of commercial switchgear continuing. In addition to the battery-bank engineering data, results of repetitive testing of vacuum interrupters at their I2t limit will be provided
Keywords :
fusion reactors; nuclear reactor maintenance; power supplies to apparatus; secondary cells; switchgear testing; 12.5 kA; 25 kA; 37.5 kA; 50 kA; I2t testing; Motorcraft car batteries; current-limiting stainless steel trombone resistors; electrical switchgear; fuses; step-switched battery bank; vacuum interrupters; Batteries; Costs; Data engineering; Fuses; Protection; Resistors; Steel; Switches; Switchgear; Testing;
Conference_Titel :
Fusion Engineering, 1989. Proceedings., IEEE Thirteenth Symposium on
Conference_Location :
Knoxville, TN
DOI :
10.1109/FUSION.1989.102179
