Low power consuming current measurements for high currents

Abstract

This invention propose a way of controlling the flux density in a current transformer to keep the transformer core saturated between two consecutive measurements in a sampling measurement system. Saturation disables transformation of primary to secondary current, and thereby disables losses in the secondary circuit during this time. Both AC and DC currents are possible to measure. The use of saturation of the transformer core also permits the core to be designed physically very small. In order to get effective and accurate low power consuming measurements, both the magnetic fields originating from primary current flowing in the primary winding and external magnetic fields must be symmetrically physically spread in the transformer core. This greatly limits the possible physical arrangement of the primary winding. The invention describes a method dividing the secondary winding into two or more separate winding sections, greatly reducing this demand and permitting a asymmetrically spread magnetic field in the core without decreasing the efficiency and accuracy of the measurements.