Discovering DC: A Primer on dc Circuit Breakers, Their Advantages, and Design

This article serves as a primer for dc circuit breakers and presents a basic overview of dc power and dc applications in contrast with alternating current (ac) systems. This article also serves as a primer on the design of dc circuit breakers, with a focus on interruption. The lack of a zero crossing requires that the circuit breaker designs look beyond the commonly used approaches for ac interruption and extend to new tools.