PhD abstract
Measuring high alternating currents over a wide frequency bandwidth is essential for many applications including the monitoring of the electrical distribution network and the development of electric vehicles. In the first case, current measurement is necessary to quantify the quality of the grid in the presence of harmonics from intermittent renewable energies with a large frequency spectrum (several hundred kilohertz). In the second case, current measurement (up to several tens of amperes) is used to quantify the efficiency of an electric motor's traction chain: in current measurement, it is essential to take into account a large number of harmonics (up to 1 MHz) to ensure an accurate knowledge of the motor's efficiency. Resistors of low values, called “shunt”, are then mandatory to measure high currents. Shunts are widely used as a resistance standard in metrology laboratories and precision instruments. Their use requires the preliminary knowledge of the following two parameters according to the frequency: Impedance phase shift; relative variation of the impedance magnitude according to its DC resistance value, this parameter is called “AC-DC difference”. For a current level of 10 A, the impedance of existing shunts shows strong variations in magnitude and phase for frequencies above 100 kHz. In addition, in National Metrology Institutes, to calibrate shunts beyond 1 A the measurement methods currently used are limited in magnitude up to 100 kHz and phase up to 200 kHz; and provide access to only one of the two parameters: magnitude or phase of impedance. The aim of this thesis is to extend the calibration capabilities of high current sensors up to 10 A and 1 MHz and thus improve the traceability of AC current measurements. Firstly, we developed a 10 A shunt standard whose electromagnetic (up to 10 MHz) and thermal responses are fully calculable: at 1 MHz the phase shift and transposition deviation are -0.01 mrad and 15 ppm respectively. Secondly, we developed a traceable calibration method to measure shunts up to 10 MHz. The measurement method, based on the use of a vector network analyzer, allows the AC-DC deviation and impedance phase of a shunt to be measured simultaneously with relative uncertainties less than 1×10⁻³ at 1 MHz.
Key words
uncertainly, current measurement, calibration, current shunts, impedance, modeling