High breaking capacity fuses with improved cooling

This paper describes a high breaking capacity fuse with improved cooling. The fuse is equipped with only heat sinks or heat sink and fan, an idea derived from the power semiconductor devices field. Some 3D thermal models are proposed for every analysed case of natural and forced cooling. The best solution was the fuse with three aluminium identical heat sinks mounted on the ceramic body. The influence of the fin length, base plate thickness of the heat sink, number of fins and the shape of the fin cross-section, has been investigated. There is a good correlation between experimental and simulation results. •Fuse with improved cooling.•Fuses including different types of heat sinks and heat sink with fan have been studied.•The possibility to overload the fuses.•Analysis of different geometrical parameters of the heat sinks with the aim to improve the fuse cooling, has been done.