Electrical Power Distribution Systems (EPDS) employed among others in Aeronautics are usually protected by active electronic driven switching components. In order to reduce response time and simplify protection driving, fuses are being considered as one of the prerequisites for the Clean Sky HVDC network.

The development of a new generation of hybrid and/or full static current limiter solutions, able to operate above 51000ft, is crucial for specificities of aircraft applications. From one side fuses technologies could be adapted to parts of the requirements but may not fully comply. On the other side, the material properties of Silicon Carbide as semiconductor, clearly superior to those of Si, should lead to enhanced hybrid current limiters with much better performance than conventional fuses or Si based solutions.

Pooling a leading fuses and protection devices manufacturer, and two research groups, FUSES 2014 aimed at a breakthrough in current protection technology to build either a hybrid and/or a full static current limiter solution with different benefits than existing solutions. Well stablished and new methodologies were adapted to fuses and SiC technologies and optimised to make them a practical reality.

The main targets were to study, optimise two solutions and validate the optical module following DO160 standard adapted to high DC voltage networks to be integrated into aircraft EPDS:

• A required specs Silver fuse and specific package.
• A SiC current limiter using existing SiC FET technologies plus its optimal packaging configuration.