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Discuss Fuses replaced with higher amperage. Thoughts? in the UK Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

While it might not be exactly the same as your situation, here is a comparison of the break time versus current for a fuse (32A BS88 Gg type) in red, and a MCB (Schneider Acti9 iC60 32A B-curve) in blue. It shows at most overload currents the MCB is faster, most dramatically above the 100-150A region where the magnetic "instantaneous" trip takes over.

OK, will try later as it seems I can't upload the picture :(
Attached is the comparison, with my crude attempts to fill in the bits not plotted by the Schneider on-line tool.

Basically as current increases a fuse blow faster (though it gets complicated and a bit variable down below one-two cycles of the AC supply as the time being split in to pre-arcing when the element is still solid, and arcing when it has vaporised and the arc is dying down) whereas a MCB when it gets to the "instant" magnetic trip it operates in 5-10 milliseconds that decreases, but not massively, with higher fault current.

So in this case you see the 32A MCB (blue curve) has lower fault energy up to around the 0.5-1kA region (especially just above 100A when the magnetic trip fires) and beyond that the fuse (red curve) blows faster and is also far more effective at limiting the peak fault current / total let-through energy.

That is why it is still very common to see boards of breakers backed up by HRC fuses - the breakers have excellent behaviour at low/medium fault currents and can be reset quickly, whereas the fuses can sit there for decades and only blow under serious faults, but very quickly limit the energy so the breaker, busbars, etc, suffer much less risk of damage.
 

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