DC Series Arc Fault Characteristic Comparision Of A Fast Fourier Transform Result

Abstract

The DC series arc fault has been a potential fire hazard at the photovoltaic system. The sustained DC series arc can support the enough energy to outbreak of fire so that the proper method to detect the arc fault is needed before the fire ignites. On the contrary of the AC system, the DC series arc don’t have a zero crossing point of the voltage and current. It means that the DC series arc detection is proper to do the detection algorithm based on using the not time domain but frequency domain. The frequency characteristic of the DC series arc fault shows that the certain frequency range helping to classify the arc fault condition or normal condition. The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is conducted to make the frequency-based data of the DC series arc fault. To draw a clear frequency feature of the arc, in this paper, the several sampling frequency and sampling numbers are implemented as an analog to digital conversion using TMS320F28033 digital signal processor. The circuit simulating a small photovoltaic system of 300 V 3 A is used to make the actual DC series arc fault and the FFT results of the actual DC series arc are compared and analyzed.