Christian Franck

Biography

Christian M. Franck was appointed Associate Professor of High Voltage Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich by June 2015 (Assistant Professor from Jan 2010 – May 2015). He studied physics at the Universities of Bonn (Germany), Edinburgh (Scotland), and Kiel (Germany) where he graduated 1999 with a diploma. Afterwards he worked at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald (Germany) in the area of electromagnetic wave propagation in magnetized plasmas, receiving his Ph.D. in experimental physics in 2003. Then he worked at the ABB Research Center in Baden (Switzerland) in the area of current interruption, limitation and high voltage insulation. From 2005 on he headed the group for high voltage systems and gas circuit breakers. In January 2010 he joined ETH Zurich as Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in June 2015. He is married and has three children. His current research and teaching is in the area of “technologies for future electric energy transmission systems” with focus in the areas of High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission technology and High-Voltage Gaseous Insulation Systems.

Research Interest

The entire energy system is currently at the beginning of a complete and fundamental transformation: away from fossil fuels (and in some countries also from nuclear fuels) towards new renewable energy sources. This transformation is driven by the desire to make clean energy available and affordable for everyone and is typically considered one of the most important challenge humanity currently faces. The role of electric energy will be central in the future energy system. Highvoltage engineering is essential for the transmission technology as, on the one hand, power is transmitted preferably at the highest possible voltage levels, but on the other hand, the available space for substation equipment is decreasing, in particular on off-shore platforms. The research and teaching focus of the High Voltage Laboratory is in the area of “technologies for future electric power transmission systems”. The two focus areas are: 1. Highvoltage Direct-Current Transmission (HVDC) Technology and 2. Highvoltage Gaseous Insulation Systems. Our project topics are the search for insulation gasmixtures alternatives to SF6, HVDC insulation systems, hybrid AC-DC overhead power lines, simulation of transient short-circuit currents in multi-terminal HVDC networks, and experimental studies to characterize and optimize switching arcs for HVDC circuit breakers. By systematically introducing the latest experimental and numerical methods, we advance the research in the classical area of high voltage engineering; an area where some of the research questions have a long history of investigation but are still not answered completely satisfying. The driver for our research is to use conceptually different research approaches in the projects. This differentiates us from others working in similar areas of research and enables us not only to solve the investigated problems but also to gain a basic physical understanding of the involved processes. The research is done mainly experimentally, backed by multiphysics simulations that partially contain newly developed models.