Method for the Absolute Calibration of Direct-Current Current Transducers

This paper describes an absolute method for calibrating commercial 1000:1 dc current transducers (DCCTs). By adding two auxiliary windings to produce 10:1 and 100:1 ratios, we use a three-step build-up method to establish the 1000:1 current ratio standard. First, we determine the 10:1 ratios of 11 DCCTs through permutation; second, we set up a two-stage composite DCCT to produce a 100:1 ratio; after switching auxiliary windings in the two-stage setup, we then derive the 1000:1 current ratio. The experimental results show that the requirements for the current source and the current meter are not stringent; their Type-B contributions to the overall uncertainties are very small. Type-A uncertainties which include factors such as the experimental environment and possible drifts of the output offsets of the DCCTs are experimentally determined. Repeated tests show that the current ratio standard has an expanded uncertainty of $0.26 \times 10^{-6}$ for the 1000:1 ratio.