Arcing fault detection module
First Claim
1. A circuit breaker enclosure for providing overcurrent and arcing fault protection to an electric current distribution circuit, the circuit breaker enclosure comprising:
- a main circuit breaker electrically connected in series with a plurality of branch circuit breakers within a common housing; and
an arcing fault detection module arranged for interrupting a pair of main contacts within said main circuit breaker upon occurrence of an arcing fault current through a pair of branch contacts within one of said branch circuit breakers, the arcing fault detection module having an autocorrelation circuit to compare even and odd harmonic frequencies within the arcing fault current for detecting the presence of an arcing fault.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An arcing fault detection module (4) for detecting arcing faults in an electrical current distribution circuit (8) comprises a filter circuit (9) and an autocorrelation circuit (10). The filter circuit (9) is electrically connected to the distribution circuit (8) and samples current with the distribution circuit. The filter circuit (9) includes a band pass filter (12) to filter out fundamental and high frequency components from the sampled current, and a comparator (13) to convert the sampled current to a digital signal. The autocorrelation circuit (10) receives the digital signal from the filter circuit (9). The autocorrelation circuit (10) includes a plurality of shift registers (15-18) for storing the digital signal for a predetermined sample period, and a plurality of EXCLUSIVE-OR gates (35-37,41, 43, 44) and OR gates (38, 39) to detect odd and even harmonic signals. An integrator-counter (47) electrically connects to certain EXCLUSIVE-OR and OR gates, and provides an arc indicative signal when the absolute value of the even and odd harmonic signals is equal to a predetermined number.
75 Citations
18 Claims
-
1. A circuit breaker enclosure for providing overcurrent and arcing fault protection to an electric current distribution circuit, the circuit breaker enclosure comprising:
-
a main circuit breaker electrically connected in series with a plurality of branch circuit breakers within a common housing; and an arcing fault detection module arranged for interrupting a pair of main contacts within said main circuit breaker upon occurrence of an arcing fault current through a pair of branch contacts within one of said branch circuit breakers, the arcing fault detection module having an autocorrelation circuit to compare even and odd harmonic frequencies within the arcing fault current for detecting the presence of an arcing fault. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. A circuit breaker enclosure for providing overcurrent and arcing fault protection to an electric current distribution circuit, the circuit breaker enclosure comprising:
-
a main circuit breaker electrically connected in series with a plurality of branch circuit breakers within a common housing; and an arcing fault detection module arranged for interrupting a pair of branch contacts within one of said branch circuit breakers upon occurrence of an arcing fault current within a branch of the electric current distribution circuit connecting with said one branch circuit breaker, the arcing fault detection module having an autocorrelation circuit to compare even and odd harmonic frequencies in the arcing fault current for detecting the presence of an arcing fault. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
-
-
16. An arcing fault detection module for detecting arcing faults in an electrical current distribution circuit, the arcing fault detection module comprising:
-
a filter circuit electrically connected to the electrical distribution circuit for providing a digitized signal representative of predetermined frequencies within a current passing through the distribution circuit; and an autocorrelation circuit electrically connected to the filter circuit for comparing odd and even frequency components of the digitized signal to detect the presence of an arcing fault in the electrical distribution circuit. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18)
-
Specification