Experiment – 11

Aim: – To study about fuse, MCB and ELCB

Objective: - To understand the basic construction and operation of protective devices such as fuse,
MCB and ELCB.

Theory:-
Safety is first measure to be taken in to account while operating any electrical equipment. Under
faulty condition undesirable path followed by current produces harmful effect to human being as
well as equipment. In order to prevent such hazardous conditions and subsequent effects various
protective devices like fuse, Circuit Breakers(CB), MCB (Miniature Circuit Breaker), ELCB
(Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker) are extensively used at domestic and industrial level.

A) Fuse
The fuse is a protecting device of simplest form. It consists of a small piece of metal when
excessive current flows through it. The metal elements melts & the current is interrupted & the
circuit gets disconnected from the supply .Thus it protects the circuit from dangerous excessive
current. So fuse is used to interrupts a fault current .It is simple protective device which works on
the principal of current interruption, if current through it becomes excessive.

Types of fuses:-
1) Rewirable Fuse or Semi closed Fuse - In such a fuse the fuse element is placed in a semi closed
carrier. Fuse carriers can be pulled out & the fuse element can be replaced, after the fuse
operation. The carrier can be then placed in the fuse base. Such fuses are very commonly used
in our houses.

2) Cartridge Fuse – This fuse is totally enclosed fuse. The fuse element is placed in a totally
enclosed carrier with two Metal contacts provided on the two sides of a carrier. The entire
cartridge is required to be replaced once fuse operates.
3) HRC Fuse - It is high rupturing capacity fuse. It is also called breaking capacity cartridge fuse.
In such a fuse the arc is extinguished with the help of quartz, sand powder such a powder
provides very high resistance which helps to extinguish the arc. It is basically a low voltage
fuse which is used for various distribution purposes.

B) Miniature Circuit Breaker (MCB)

Miniature Circuit Breaker (MCB) is a device which can open or close a circuit either manually or
automatically under all conditions like no load, full load and fault conditions. It consists of a
moving contact and affixed contact. It is so designed that it can operate manually under normal
condition and automatically under fault condition. Under normal conditions the contacts of MCB
remain closed and carry normal full load current. When the fault occurs the secondary current of
CT increases thus energizing the trip coil, there by the CB contacts are opened and circuit is
disconnected from the bus bar. The main advantage of MCB is that when it trips off due to a fault
it cannot be switched on again until the fault is rectified.

There are two arrangement of operation of miniature circuit breaker. One due to thermal effect of
over current and other due to electromagnetic effect of over current. The thermal operation of
miniature circuit breaker is achieved with a bimetallic strip whenever continuous over current
flows through MCB, the bimetallic strip is heated and deflects by bending. But during short circuit
condition, sudden rising of current, causes electromechanical displacement of plunger associated
with tripping coil or solenoid of MCB. The plunger strikes the trip lever causing immediate release
of latch mechanism consequently open the circuit breaker contacts.
Miniature circuit breaker construction is very simple, robust and maintenance free. Generally a
MCB is not repaired or maintained, it just replaced by new one when required. A miniature circuit
breaker has normally three main constructional parts. These are:
i) Frame of Miniature Circuit Breaker - The frame of miniature circuit breaker is a molded case.
This is a rigid, strong, insulated housing in which the other components are mounted.
ii) Operating Mechanism of Miniature Circuit Breaker - The operating mechanism of miniature
circuit breaker provides the means of manual opening and closing operation of miniature
circuit breaker. It has three-positions "ON," "OFF," and "TRIPPED". The external switching
latch can be in the "TRIPPED" position, if the MCB is tripped due to over- current. When
manually switch off the MCB, the switching latch will be in "OFF" position. In close
condition of MCB, the switch is positioned at "ON". By observing the positions of the
switching latch one can determine the condition of MCB whether it is closed, tripped or
manually switched off.
iii) Trip Unit of Miniature Circuit Breaker - The trip unit is the main part, responsible for proper
working of miniature circuit breaker. Two main types of trip mechanism are provided in
MCB. A bimetal provides protection against over load current and an electromagnet provides
protection against short-circuit current.

C) Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker (ELCB)

If any current leaks from any electrical installation, there must-be any insulation failure in the
electrical circuit, it must be properly detected and prevented otherwise there may be a high chance
of electrical shock if-anyone touches the installation. An earth leakage circuit breaker does it
efficiently. Means it detects the earth leakage current and makes the power supply off by opening
the associated circuit breaker. There are two types of earth leakage circuit breaker, one is voltage
ELCB and other is current ELCB.
a) Voltage Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker - The working principle of voltage ELCB is quite
simple. One terminal of the relay coil is connected to the metal body of the equipment to be
protected against earth leakage and other terminal is connected to the earth directly. If any
insulation failure occurs or live phase wire touches the metal body, of the equipment, there
must be a voltage difference appears across the terminal of the coil connected to the equipment
body and earth. This voltage difference produces a current to flow the relay coil.
If the voltage difference crosses, a predetermined limit, the current through the relay becomes
sufficient to actuate the relay for tripping the associated circuit breaker to disconnect the power
supply to the equipment. The typicality of this device is, it can detect and protect only that
equipment or installation with which it is attached. It cannot detect any leakage of insulation in
other installation of the system.
b) Current ELCB or RCCB or Residual Current Circuit Breaker - The working principle of
current earth leakage circuit breaker or RCCB is also very simple as voltage operated ELCB
but the theory is entirely different and residual current circuit breaker is more sensitive than
ELCB. Actually, ELCBs are of two kinds, but it is general practice to refer voltage based
ELCB as simple ELCB. And current based ELCB is referred as RCD or RCCB. Here one CT
core is energized from both phase wise and neutral wire.

The polarity of the phase winding and neutral winding on the core is so chosen that, in normal
condition mmf of one winding opposes that of another. As it is assumed that, in normal operating
conditions the current goes through the phase wire will be returned via neutral wire if there's no
leakage in between. As both currents are same, the resultant mmf produced by these two currents
is also zero-ideally. The relay coil is connected with another third winding wound on the CT core
as secondary. The terminals of this winding are connected to a relay system. In normal operating
condition there would not be any current circulating in the third winding as here is no flux in the
core due to equal phase and neutral current. When any earth leakage occurs in the equipment, there
may be part of phase current passes to the earth, through the leakage path instead of returning via
mental wire. Hence the magnitude of the neutral current passing through the RCCB is not equal to
phase current passing through it.