Solid state circuit breaker investigation

本项目是发展智能、稳健、快速的半导体驱动的可行性研究。 用于保护配电系统的断路器。碳化硅(SiC)功率器件是一种新兴的 具有优异物理性能的带隙半导体技术，适用于大电流、高功率 适用于高电压和高温应用。特别是，这个项目将研究各种驱动技术，以 生产用于Smart的低损耗、大电流(&gt；100A)电子断路器的并行碳化硅功率MOSFET 网格应用程序。该项目将分三个阶段进行。第一阶段是研究最新技术。 电力设备技术。将为Volta Energy编写一份报告，其中包含以下范围的信息 商业上可用的电源设备、它们的优点和缺点、它们的相关损耗以及 导通损耗和开关损耗之间的权衡。在第二阶段，选择碳化硅功率 MOSFET的特性及其在实现低导通电阻、大电流方面的适用性 将确定电子断路器。更具体地说，电源的均流特性 我们将研究各种工作温度范围内的MOSFET。为了避免目前的不平衡 多个功率MOSFET并联中常见的问题，特殊的栅极驱动技术将是 检查过了。在第三阶段，用于评估不同断路器的原型开发平台 利用并联的碳化硅功率MOSFET阵列，构建了功率MOSFET，并对其进行了表征。尤其是电力损耗， 将研究温度分布、热失控问题。这个项目的结果将是一个 论证了开发和生产碳化硅基电子断路器的可行性。

This project is feasibility study on the development of intelligent, robust and fast acting semiconductor driven breakers to protect power distribution systems. Silicon Carbide (SiC) power devices are an emerging wide bandgap semiconductor technology with superior physical properties that are suited for high current, high voltage and high temperature applications. In particular, this project will study various driving techniques for parallel SiC power MOSFETs to produce low loss, high current (>100A) electronic circuit breakers for Smart Grid applications. This project will be carried out in three phases. The first phase is to study state of the art SiC power device technology. A report will be prepared for Volta Energy with information on the range of commercially available power devices, their strengths and weaknesses, their associated losses, and any trade-off between conduction loss and switching losses. In the second phase, a selection of SiC power MOSFETs will be characterized and their suitability for the implementation of low on-resistance, high current electronic circuit breaker will be determined. More specifically, the current sharing characteristics of the power MOSFETs over a wide range of operating temperatures will be studied. In order to avoid the current imbalance problem that is common in the paralleling of multiple power MOSFETs, special gate driving techniques will be examined. In phase three, a prototype development platform for the evaluation of different circuit breakers using parallel array of SiC power MOSFETs will be constructed and characterized. In particular, power losses, temperature profile, thermal runaway issues will be studied. The outcome of this project will be a demonstration of the viability of developing and producing SiC-based electronic circuit breakers.