• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.391-396
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• 2023

Recently, as power and electronic devices have increased in frequency and capacity, it has become a major concern to protect electronic circuits and electronic components used in these devices from abnormal voltages such as various surges and pulse noise. To respond to variously rated voltages applied to power electronic devices, the rated voltages of various varistors can be obtained by controlling the size of internal particles of the varistor or controlling the number of layers of the varistor. During bonding, the problem of unbalanced thermal runaway occurring between the electrode and the varistor interface causes degradation of the varistor and shortens its life of the varistor. In this study, to solve the problem of unbalanced heat distribution of stacked varistors to adjust the operating voltage, the contents of the ZnO-based varistor composition were 96 wt% ZnO, 1 mol% Sb₂O₃, 1 mol% Bi₂O₃, 0.5 mol% CoO, 0.5 mol% MnO, and 1 mol% TiO₂. A multi-layered ZnO varistor was modeled by bonding a single varistor with a composition in three layers according to the operating voltage. The thermal distribution of the triple-layered ZnO varistor was analyzed for the thermal runaway phenomenon that occurred during varistor operation using the finite element method according to Comsol 5.2.