Fuse

In electronics and electrical engineering, a fuse is an electrical safety device that operates to provide overcurrent protection of an electrical circuit. Its essential component is a metal wire or strip that melts when too much current flows through it, thereby interrupting the current. It is a sacrificial device; once a fuse has operated it is an open circuit, and it must be replaced or rewired, depending on type.
Fuses have been used as essential safety devices from the early days of electrical engineering. Today there are thousands of different fuse designs which have specific current and voltage ratings, breaking capacity and response times, depending on the application. The time and current operating characteristics of fuses are chosen to provide adequate protection without needless interruption. Wiring regulations usually define a maximum fuse current rating for particular circuits. Short circuits, overloading, mismatched loads, or device failure are the prime reasons for fuse operation.
A fuse is an automatic means of removing power from a faulty system; often abbreviated to ADS (Automatic Disconnection of Supply). Circuit breakers can be used as an alternative design solution to fuses, but have significantly different characteristics.

History

Breguet recommended the use of reduced-section conductors to protect telegraph stations from lightning strikes; by melting, the smaller wires would protect apparatus and wiring inside the building. A variety of wire or foil fusible elements were in use to protect telegraph cables and lighting installations as early as 1864.
A fuse was patented by Thomas Edison in 1890 as part of his electric distribution system.

Construction

 

A fuse consists of a metal strip or wire fuse element, of small cross-section compared to the circuit conductors, mounted between a pair of electrical terminals, and (usually) enclosed by a non-combustible housing. The fuse is arranged in series to carry all the current passing through the protected circuit. The resistance of the element generates heat due to the current flow. The size and construction of the element is (empirically) determined so that the heat produced for a normal current does not cause the element to attain a high temperature. If too high a current flows, the element rises to a higher temperature and either directly melts, or else melts a soldered joint within the fuse, opening the circuit.
The fuse element is made of zinc, copper, silver, aluminum, or alloys to provide stable and predictable characteristics. The fuse ideally would carry its rated current indefinitely, and melt quickly on a small excess. The element must not be damaged by minor harmless surges of current, and must not oxidize or change its behavior after possibly years of service.
The fuse elements may be shaped to increase heating effect. In large fuses, current may be divided between multiple strips of metal. A dual-element fuse may contain a metal strip that melts instantly on a short-circuit, and also contain a low-melting solder joint that responds to long-term overload of low values compared to a short-circuit. Fuse elements may be supported by steel or nichrome wires, so that no strain is placed on the element, but a spring may be included to increase the speed of parting of the element fragments.
The fuse element may be surrounded by air, or by materials intended to speed the quenching of the arc. Silica sand or non-conducting liquids may be used.

Characteristic parameters

Rated current I_N

A maximum current that the fuse can continuously conduct without interrupting the circuit.

Speed

The speed at which a fuse blows depends on how much current flows through it and the material of which the fuse is made. The operating time is not a fixed interval, but decreases as the current increases. Fuses have different characteristics of operating time compared to current. A standard fuse may require twice its rated current to open in one second, a fast-blow fuse may require twice its rated current to blow in 0.1 seconds, and a slow-blow fuse may require twice its rated current for tens of seconds to blow.
Fuse selection depends on the load's characteristics. Semiconductor devices may use a fast or ultrafast fuse as semiconductor devices heat rapidly when excess current flows. The fastest blowing fuses are designed for the most sensitive electrical equipment, where even a short exposure to an overload current could be very damaging. Normal fast-blow fuses are the most general purpose fuses. The time delay fuse (also known as anti-surge, or slow-blow) are designed to allow a current which is above the rated value of the fuse to flow for a short period of time without the fuse blowing. These types of fuse are used on equipment such as motors, which can draw larger than normal currents for up to several seconds while coming up to speed.
Manufacturers can provide a plot of current vs time, often plotted on logarithmic scales, to characterize the device and to allow comparison with the characteristics of protective devices upstream and downstream of the fuse.

The I²t value

The I²t rating is related to the amount of energy let through by the fuse element when it clears the electrical fault. This term is normally used in short circuit conditions and the values are used to perform co-ordination studies in electrical networks. I²t parameters are provided by charts in manufacturer data sheets for each fuse family. For coordination of fuse operation with upstream or downstream devices, both melting I²t and clearing I²t are specified. The melting I²t is proportional to the amount of energy required to begin melting the fuse element. The clearing I²t is proportional to the total energy let through by the fuse when clearing a fault. The energy is mainly dependent on current and time for fuses as well as the available fault level and system voltage. Since the I²t rating of the fuse is proportional to the energy it lets through, it is a measure of the thermal damage from the heat and magnetic forces that will be produced by a fault.

Breaking capacity

The breaking capacity is the maximum current that can safely be interrupted by the fuse. This should be higher than the prospective short-circuit current. Miniature fuses may have an interrupting rating only 10 times their rated current. Some fuses are designated High Rupture Capacity (HRC) and are usually filled with sand or a similar material. Fuses for small, low-voltage, usually residential, wiring systems are commonly rated, in North American practice, to interrupt 10,000 amperes. Fuses for commercial or industrial power systems must have higher interrupting ratings, with some low-voltage current-limiting high interrupting fuses rated for 300,000 amperes. Fuses for high-voltage equipment, up to 115,000 volts, are rated by the total apparent power (megavolt-amperes, MVA) of the fault level on the circuit.

Rated voltage

The voltage rating of the fuse must be equal to or, greater than, what would become the open-circuit voltage. For example, a glass tube fuse rated at 32 volts would not reliably interrupt current from a voltage source of 120 or 230V. If a 32V fuse attempts to interrupt the 120 or 230 V source, an arc may result. Plasma inside the glass tube may continue to conduct current until the current diminishes to the point where the plasma becomes a non-conducting gas. Rated voltage should be higher than the maximum voltage source it would have to disconnect. Connecting fuses in series does not increase the rated voltage of the combination, nor of any one fuse.
Medium-voltage fuses rated for a few thousand volts are never used on low voltage circuits, because of their cost and because they cannot properly clear the circuit when operating at very low voltages.

Voltage drop

The manufacturer may specify the voltage drop across the fuse at rated current. There is a direct relationship between a fuse's cold resistance and its voltage drop value. Once current is applied, resistance and voltage drop of a fuse will constantly grow with the rise of its operating temperature until the fuse finally reaches thermal equilibrium. The voltage drop should be taken into account, particularly when using a fuse in low-voltage applications. Voltage drop often is not significant in more traditional wire type fuses, but can be significant in other technologies such as resettable (PPTC) type fuses.