SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MONITORING CURRENT IN A CONDUCTOR

• US 20090243590A1
• Filed: 04/01/2008
• Published: 10/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Devarapalli, Sreenivasulu, Vicente, Nataniel Barbosa, West, Stephen James, Hameed, Zubair, Greenwood, Todd, Lenhart, Brian Patrick
• Application Number:
  US12/060,442
• Publication Number:
  US 20090243590A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 324/117.R
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 15/181 using coils without a magnetic core, e.g. Rogowski coils
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 19/04 Measuring peak values or amplitude or envelope of ac or of pulses

Abstract

The present disclosure describes a system for measuring current amplitude in a conductor, comprising at least one Rogowski coil, an integration circuit directly connected to the at least one Rogowski coil, a microprocessor circuit in communication with the integration circuit and configured to receive output from the integration circuit and to calculate energy data comprising current amplitude in the conductor. A method for measuring current in a conductor is also presented.

Claims

1. A system for measuring current amplitude in a conductor, comprising:

at least one Rogowski coil;

an integration circuit directly connected to the at least one Rogowski coil; and

a microprocessor circuit in communication with the integration circuit and configured to receive output from the integration circuit and to calculate energy data comprising current amplitude in the conductor.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising gain circuitry electrically connected to the integration circuit and configured to amplify a output received therefrom.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising an analog to digital converter circuit electrically connected to the gain circuitry.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a processor configured to communicate with the microprocessor and to communicate the energy data to a main control unit and wherein the processor is also configured to identify an aspect of the at least one Rogowski coil and whereby it may configure itself to match the energy data calculations based on the at least one Rogowski coil.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the conductor comprises three-phase electrical wiring.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the processor is configured to communicate with a flux shifter, wherein the processor is further configured to close the flux shifter when a trip time is exceeded.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising an Make Contact Release electrically connected to a breaker and configured to power the breaker into a fault condition if a current level is outside a predetermined range.

8. A method for monitoring current in a conductor comprising:

gathering current data from a first conductor via a Rogowski coil;

providing a integration circuit directly connected to the Rogowski coil;

transmitting current data from the integration circuit to a main circuit board via serial, parallel or wireless communication; and

processing the data to provide a current reading.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising analog to digital conversion circuitry electrically connected to the gain circuitry and configured to convert an amplified signal from analog to digital communication.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the transmitting step further comprising a microcontroller.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the processing step further comprises identifying an aspect of the at least one Rogowski coil and whereby it may configure itself to match the at least one Rogowski coil.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the conductor comprises three-phase electrical wiring.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the integration circuit is configured to integrate voltage data obtained from the Rogowski as a function of time to calculate current data.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to perform sum of squares operations, half and full cycle sun of squares operations, peak detection, error detection, half and full cycle sliding SSO, and communicate with main control unit.

15. The method of claim 8, further comprising an MCR electrically connected to a breaker and configured to power the breaker into a fault condition if a current level is outside a predetermined range.