Discuss Difference between ON and OFF intervention in the tsd of an ACB trip module in the UK Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

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Hi All,

I'm trying to learn about discrimination and I came accross the LSIG characteristics of an Air Circuit Breaker. Howecerm there is something I really cannot understand about the Tsd. What's the difference between ON and OFF in the intervention? Thank you in advance
 

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To achieve selectivity with down-stream breakers you need both a higher trip current for the thermal curve aspect, but you also need some form of time delay on very high currents so if the fault goes above the thermal overload curve in to the magnetic 'instant' trip region the upstream device holds on for long enough that the downstream one can clear if possible.

So the larger breakers such as ACB and some MCCB (category B) often have a two-stage high current trip. There is often a fixed magnetic point where the breaker goes 'instantly' and tries to limit the fault energy, but below that you often have an electronic adjustable trip point in both short-time delay and related short-time trip current to allow some coordinated selectivity with those further down-stream.

However, having a fixed square curve for trip current and time is not necessarily the best way of getting good enough selectivity while still protecting the supply and cables, etc. So some devices have two curve options, a simple "step" mode where above Isd it holds for Tsd, and a I2t mode where there is a slope approximating the constant I2t sort of region that you might optimise for cable protection, etc. Here is a good overview but usually you need to check with the manufacturer's specifications as they are not all standard like MCB are:
 
To achieve selectivity with down-stream breakers you need both a higher trip current for the thermal curve aspect, but you also need some form of time delay on very high currents so if the fault goes above the thermal overload curve in to the magnetic 'instant' trip region the upstream device holds on for long enough that the downstream one can clear if possible.

So the larger breakers such as ACB and some MCCB (category B) often have a two-stage high current trip. There is often a fixed magnetic point where the breaker goes 'instantly' and tries to limit the fault energy, but below that you often have an electronic adjustable trip point in both short-time delay and related short-time trip current to allow some coordinated selectivity with those further down-stream.

However, having a fixed square curve for trip current and time is not necessarily the best way of getting good enough selectivity while still protecting the supply and cables, etc. So some devices have two curve options, a simple "step" mode where above Isd it holds for Tsd, and a I2t mode where there is a slope approximating the constant I2t sort of region that you might optimise for cable protection, etc. Here is a good overview but usually you need to check with the manufacturer's specifications as they are not all standard like MCB are:
Thank you for your reply.
Honestly? Your explanation is good but my level does not allow me to understand in full. I will have to process and further dig.

I will have a look at your link and get back to you.
Cheers
 
This gives a very basic overview of how two protective device curves have to be spaced in current and/or time to allow selectivity:

However, for real world products like ACB and electronic MCCB it is far more complex. This PDF paper covers just the ABB products, but shows some of the features and gives you some insight in to just how complicated it can become in large systems:

In most cases you just look at the manufacturer's selectivity tables to see what is going to work (fuse-MCB, MCCB-MCB, MCB-MCB, etc) but some companies have software tools to give the answers. Schneider has one but you have to register, also it only works for certain combinations of their products :( This rather bizare link works for me, seems they don't make it too easy to find:


(Also it is broken by ad-blockers, not even a message to say so, so really pretty crap web design)
 

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