Accelerated aging test of Solid-State DC Circuit Breaker based on 2.5 kV Reverse Blocking IGCT

Abstract

This paper presents the accelerated ageing test results of solid-state circuit breaker based on the 2.5 kV Reverse Blocking IGCT (RB-IGCT). Solid-State Circuit Breakers (SSCB) are protection and safety devices and must have high reliability, especially when a system fault or overload happens. Because circuit breakers operate very differently from the typical power converter and undergo different sets of stresses (continuous on-state gate bias, surge currents and short-circuit withstanding, etc.), a specific reliability and accelerated aging study is necessary. This paper presents the results of accelerated ageing tests, by performing 10,000 short-circuit current interruptions at 1 kV, 4.7 kA, on an RB-IGCT based breaker module and presents the ageing characteristics of the RB-IGCT and the parallel metal oxide varistor (MOV) over the course of testing. The experimental results show about 5-6% increase in on-state forward voltage of the RB-IGCT and a similar percentage increase in the MOV clamping voltage.