Title: High Speed, Compact MVDC Isolation Device Capabilities
Authors: Antonios Challita and Mark Uva
Abstract: Future Navy vessels will have significantly increased power demands compared to ships of similar size today. Advanced architectures for Medium Voltage Direct Current (MVDC) will be needed to effectively move generated power to both propulsion and advanced weapons and sensors. MVDC architecture requires technologies to quickly open and clear faults while isolating faulted parts of the system. IAP Research, Inc. specializing in electromagnetic launchers, advanced materials, and power electronics, has developed a compact, ultra-high speed isolation device (disconnect) for MVDC architectures targeting future ship upgrades and new builds. The work presented here is conducted under a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) project sponsored by NAVSEA. A 6 kVDC, 2000 A high power density, high efficiency, ultra High speed MVDC isolation device has been designed, built and successfully tested. This paper describes the device, its operation and it presents the test results that shows the feasibility and demonstrate the capability of isolating faulted circuit in few hundred microseconds.