부산대학교 도서관

This article shows an analysis of time-current curves of non-conventional filament prototypes for recycled cut-out fuses. These recycled cut-out fuses were obtained through substitution of conventional filaments by non-conventional prototypes. The filament prototypes were made from strands of conventional low-voltage conductors. Nine filament types were experimentally tested, combining three filament lengths with three conductor manufacturers, to obtain their time-current melting curves. At high current levels, the time-current curves simply follow a conventional I 2 t curve. The minimum melting current and the fuse behavior at intermediate current levels depend on filament length, because: a) the melting time is high enough to allow heat transfer to adjacent parts; b) there are changes in filament lengths, due to the heating and the tensile force on the filaments. A brief theoretical introduction about the fuse heating is also included in this article. There are important differences in results obtained with filaments from conductors of different manufacturers, even though the theoretical characteristics of conductors were the same for all of them.