Research on a fault current limiter based on variable reactor

With the increase of the power load in power grid， the short circuit level continues to rise， and excessive short-circuit current will do great damage to power equipment and imperil power systems. In order to control the short-circuit current， a design method for fault current limiter based on variable reactor is proposed. The fault current limiter is equipped with cores and variable air gaps， and thus can immediately switch off short-circuit current. Moreover， a genetic algorithm is introduced to optimize the design of the fault current limiter. Finite element analysis is used for simulation experiment on the fault current limiter. The analysis results show that the fault current limiter can offer high performance.