Reduction of fault current peak in an inductive high-Tc superconducting fault current limiter

This paper dealt with current-limiting performances of an inductive high-T-c superconducting fault current limiter with an auxiliary coil. The fault current limiter mainly consists of the primary copper coil, secondary high-T, superconducting rings, and auxiliary high-T-c superconducting coils, which are magnetically coupled through three-legged core. The superconducting fault current limiter as a series element in the power system is inserted to limit the fault current. The device presents fast variable-impedance features in the event of a fault condition. The fault current peak can become relatively large for certain ranges of the flux and the fault instant due to the core saturation. The auxiliary coil proposed in this paper was proven to increase the impedance of the SFCL up to more than 31% while preventing the core saturation. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.