Thermal model for current limiting fuses installed in vertical position

• Methodology to calculate the temperature distribution of the complete fuse installed in vertical position.
• It provides the results very quickly in comparison with other methods.
• It will allow to develop prototypes resembling more closely the final solution and so to reduce the need of testing.

This paper presents a new mathematical model developed for the designing process improvement of high voltage current-limiting fuses, which is able to solve the heating process of fuses installed in vertical position.Once the transient heating process has been solved, this model allows obtaining the values of the power dissipated and the heat transfer coefficients corresponding to the steady state conditions. From these values, the temperature distribution at the surface of the complete fuse is calculated and so, it is possible to verify whether international standards are fulfilled or not.The new model proposed has been validated by comparison of the numerical values calculated from the model with those obtained by testing real fuses.