DEVICE FOR LIMITING AND SWITCHING-OFF OF ELECTRIC CIRCUIT CURRENT Russian patent published in 2002 - IPC

FIELD: protection of power networks. SUBSTANCE: the device has two parallel electrodes made of resistive material interconnected at the input ends by an electric discharge initiation device. The novelty in the claimed device is in the fact that additional pairs of electrodes are introduced with the respective electric discharge initiation devices connected between the input ends of the pairs of electrodes. The main pair and the additional pairs of electrodes are combined in a common electric discharge unit, in which each pair of electrodes is separated from the others by an electric insulating partition. The unit of electric discharge channels may be coiled in a flat or cylindrical spiral, in which the last pair of electrodes of each turn of the spiral is installed to join the first pair of electrodes of the subsequent turn of the spiral via an electrolyzer. The output end at least of one channel has an electric insulating partition installed along the electrodes and covering the channel in the plane perpendicular to the plane of the electrodes of the given channel. EFFECT: enhanced efficiency of electric circuit current limiting in relatively low-power electric networks at a short-circuit fault. 4 cl, 9 dwg