Thermal Fusing Model of Conducting Particle Composites
- Sandia National Laboratories
Composites of carbon black particles in polyethylene are known to exhibit an unusually rapid increase in resistivity as the applied field is increased, making this material useful in automatically resettable fuses. In this application the composite is in series with the circuit it is protecting: at low applied voltages this circuit is the load, but at high applied voltages the composite becomes the load, limiting the current to the circuit. We present a simple model of this behavior in terms of a network of nonlinear conductors. Each conductor has a conductance that depends on its instantaneous Joule heating. It is shown that in the fusing regime, where the current through the composite decreases with increasing voltage, an plate-like dissipation instability develops normal to the applied field. Experimental evidence of this phenomena is described.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (US); Sandia National Labs., Livermore, CA (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 8394
- Report Number(s):
- SAND99-1591J
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physcis, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physcis
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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