ASANSOL INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT – POLYTECHNIC

ASANSOL

1.1Necessity & functions of protective system

. 1.2 Normal & abnormal conditions

1.3 Types of faults & their causes.1.4 Use of current limiting reactors & their arrangements.

1.5 Short-circuit KVA calculations for symmetrical faults – problems.

Pretest:

1.What do you mean by protective system?

2.What are the different types of faults occur in an electrical system?

Introduction

The objective of power system protection is to isolate a faulty section of electrical power system from rest of
the live system so that the rest portion can function satisfactorily without any severe damage due to fault
current.

Main body:

Necessity and functions of protective system:

Modern power systems are growing fast with more generators, transformers and large network in this system.
For a system operation high degree of reliability is required. In order to protect the system from damage due to
abnormal current and voltage caused by faults the need for reliable protective devices such as relays and circuit
breakers arises. The most common electrical hazard against which protection is required is the short circuit.
There are many other abnormal conditions e g overloads, under voltage and overvoltage, open phase,
unbalanced phase currents, reversal of power, under frequency and over frequency, over temperature for which
some protection is desired.

On the occurrence of fault which may lead to heavy disturbances in normal operation like damage of equipment
the protective system is designed to disconnect or isolate the faulty section from the system without any delay.
The protective system is designed to energize an alarm or signal whenever the overloads and short circuits do
not present a direct danger to the faulted circuit element and the entire installation. The main functions of
protective system are to detect the presence of faults, their locations and initiate the action for quick removal
from service of any element of a power system which starts to operate in abnormal condition. The above
function is done by a protective system having mainly circuit breakers and relays. Fuses are employed where
protective relays and circuit breakers are not economically justifiable.

Normal & abnormal conditions:

Normal condition in power system means there is no fault. System having fault is called in abnormal
condition. A fault in an electric power system can be defined as , any abnormal condition of the system that
involves the electrical failure of the equipment, such as , transformers, generators, bus bars, etc. Under normal
or safe operating conditions, the electric equipment in a power system network operate at normal voltage and
current ratings. Once the fault takes place in a circuit or device, voltage and current values deviates from their
nominal ranges. The faults in power system causes over current, under voltage, unbalance of the phases,
reversed power and high voltage surges. This results in the interruption of the normal operation of the network,
failure of equipment, electrical fires, etc.

Usually power system networks are protected with switchgear protection equipment such as circuit breakers and
relays in order to limit the loss of service due to the electrical failures.
Types of faults & their causes: Electrical faults in three-phase power system mainly classified into two types,
namely open and short circuit faults. Further, these faults can be symmetrical or unsymmetrical faults.

Open Circuit Faults

These faults occur due to the failure of one or more conductors. The figure below illustrates the open circuit
faults for single, two and three phases (or conductors) open condition.

The most common causes of these faults include joint failures of cables and overhead lines, and failure of one or
more phase of circuit breaker and also due to melting of a fuse or conductor in one or more phases.

Open circuit faults are also called as series faults. These are unsymmetrical or unbalanced type of faults except
three phase open fault.
Consider that a transmission line is working with a balanced load before the occurrence of open circuit fault. If one of the
phase gets melted, the actual loading of the alternator is reduced and this cause to raise the acceleration of the alternator,
thereby it runs at a speed slightly greater than synchronous speed. This over speed causes over voltages in other
transmission lines.

Thus, single and two phase open conditions can produce the unbalance of the power system voltages and currents that
causes great damage to the equipment.

Causes
Broken conductor and malfunctioning of circuit breaker in one or more phases.

Short Circuit Faults

A short circuit can be defined as an abnormal connection of very low impedance between two points of different potential,
whether made intentionally or accidentally.

These are the most common and severe kind of faults, resulting in the flow of abnormal high currents through the
equipment or transmission lines. If these faults are allowed to persist even for a short period, it leads to the extensive
damage to the equipment.

Short circuit faults are also called as shunt faults. These faults are caused due to the insulation failure between phase
conductors or between earth and phase conductors or both.

The various possible short circuit fault conditions include three phase to earth, three phase clear of earth, phase to phase,
single phase to earth, two phase to earth and phase to phase plus single phase to earth as shown in figure.

The three phase fault clear of earth and three phase fault to earth are balanced or symmetrical short circuit faults while
other remaining faults are unsymmetrical faults.
Causes
These may be due to internal or external effects

 Internal effects include breakdown of transmission lines or equipment, aging of insulation, deterioration of
insulation in generator, transformer and other electrical equipment, improper installations and inadequate design.
 External effects include overloading of equipment, insulation failure due to lighting surges and mechanical damage
by public.

As discussed above that faults are mainly classified into open and short circuit faults and again these can be symmetrical
or unsymmetrical faults.

Symmetrical Faults
A symmetrical fault gives rise to symmetrical fault currents that are displaced with 120 degrees with each other.
Symmetrical fault is also called as balanced fault. This fault occurs when all the three phases are simultaneously short
circuited.

These faults rarely occur in practice as compared with unsymmetrical faults. Two kinds of symmetrical faults include line
to line to line (L-L-L) and line to line to line to ground (L-L-L-G) as shown in figure below.
A rough occurrence of symmetrical faults is in the range of 2 to 5% of the total system faults. However, if these faults
occur, they cause a very severe damage to the equipment even though the system remains in balanced condition.

Unsymmetrical Faults
The most common faults that occur in the power system network are unsymmetrical faults. This kind of fault gives rise to
unsymmetrical fault currents (having different magnitudes with unequal phase displacement). These faults are also called
as unbalanced faults as it causes unbalanced currents in the system.

Up to the above discussion, unsymmetrical faults include both open circuit faults (single and two phase open condition)
and short circuit faults (excluding L-L-L-G and L-L-L).

The figure below shows the three types of symmetrical faults occurred due to the short circuit conditions, namely phase or
line to ground (L-G) fault, phase to phase (L-L) fault and double line to ground (L-L-G) fault.

A single line-to-ground (LG) fault is one of the most common faults and experiences show that 70-80 percent of the faults
that occur in power system are of this type. This forms a short circuit path between the line and ground. These are very
less severe faults compared to other faults.

A line to line fault occur when a live conductor get in contact with other live conductor. Heavy winds are the major cause
for this fault during which swinging of overhead conductors may touch together. These are less severe faults and its
occurrence range may be between 15-20%.

In double line to ground faults, two lines come into the contact with each other as well as with ground. These are severe
faults and the occurrence these faults is about 10% when compared with total system faults.

Use of current limiting reactors & their arrangements:

Current limiting reactors can reduce short-circuitcurrents. "A current limiting reactor, also called a series
reactor, is a coil which has high inductive reactance as compared to its resistance."
 These reactors are used to limit the short circuit current and the effect of resulting voltage disturbances during
fault conditions. The short circuit currents depend upon the generating capacity, voltage at the fault point and
the total reactance between the generators and the fault point.

In large interconnected systems, the total rating of the generators is very high and also, when the system is
extended by the addition of more generating units, the fault currents are also increased. So the fault current to be
interrupted by the same circuit breaker will become greater than the earlier value. These short circuit currents
may be large enough to cause damage to the line and other equipment of the power system network.
The short circuit current can be kept within safe limits by increasing the reactance between the source and the
fault. Thus, there is a need of providing a protective reactor. By including a reactor or few reactors at strategic
locations, the short circuit currents at different points in the power system can be reduced.

Main functions of Current Limiting Reactors:

The primary functions of a current limiting reactor are:

1. To reduce the flow of current into a short circuit so as to protect the power system apparatus and parts of the
system from excessive mechanical stress and overheating.

2. To reduce the magnitude of voltage disturbances caused by short circuits.

3. To localize the faults by limiting the current that flows into the fault from other healthy feeders or part of the
system.

4. To reduce the duty imposed on switching equipment during short circuits.

Connection diagram of a current limiting reactor:

Short-circuit KVA calculations for symmetrical faults:

That fault on the power system which gives rise to symmetrical fault currents (i.e. equal fault currents in
the lines with 120o displacement) is called a symmetrical fault. The symmetrical fault occurs when all the three
conductors of a 3-phase line are brought together simultaneously into a short
 circuit condition as shown in Fig below. This type of fault gives rise to symmetrical currents i.e. equal
fault currents with 120-degree displacement. Thus fault currents IR, IY and IB will be equal in magnitude with
120-degree displacement among them. Because of balanced nature of fault, only one* phase need be
considered in calculations since condition in the other two phases will also be similar

When a short circuit occurs at any point in a system, the short-circuit current is limited by the impedance
of the system upto the point of fault. Thus referring to the above if a fault occurs on the feeder at point F, then
the short circuit current from the generating station will have a value limited by the impedance of generator and
transformer and the impedance of the line between the generator and the point of fault. This shows that the
knowledge of the impedances of various equipment and circuits in the line of the system is very important for
the determination of short-circuit currents.

Percentage reactance is the percentage of the total phase-voltage dropped in the circuit when full-load
current is flowing i.e.,

%X = (IX/ V) ...(i)

where I = full-load current

V = phase voltage

X = reactance in ohms per phase

percentage reactance (%X) can also be expressed in terms* of kVA and kV as under :
kVA X
%X =10𝐾𝑉 2 where x is the reactance in ohm. ..(ii)

where X is the reactance in ohm

If X is the only reactance element in the circuit, then short-circuit current is given by ;
100
ISC = V/ X=I× ( %𝑋 )

The product of normal system voltage and short-circuit current at the point of fault expressed in kVA is
known as short-circuit kVA. Let V = normal phase voltage in volts I = full-load current in amperes at base kVA
%X = percentage reactance of the system on base kVA upto the fault point
 100
Short-circuit current, ISC = I × ( %𝑋 )

∴ Short-circuit kVA for 3-phase circuit

100
=3VISC/ 1000=3V/1000×I × ( %𝑋 )

100
=Base KVA× ( %𝑋 )

Steps for Symmetrical Fault Calculations

(i) Draw a single line diagram of the complete network indicating the rating, voltage and percentage
reactance of each element of the network.
(ii) Choose a numerically convenient value of base kVA and convert all percentage reactances to
this base value.
(iii) Corresponding to the single line diagram of the network, draw the reactance diagram showing
one phase of the system and the neutral. Indicate the % reactance on the base kVA in the
reactance diagram. The transformer in the system should be represented by a reactance in series.
(iv) Find the total % reactance of the network upto the point of fault. Let it be X%.
(v) Find the full-load current corresponding to the selected base kVA and the normal system voltage
at the fault point. Let it be I.
(vi) Then various short-circuit calculations are :
100
Short-circuit current, ISC = I × ( %𝑋 )

100
Short-circuit kVA = Base kVA ×( %𝑋 )
Summary:

 In order to protect the system from damage due to abnormal current and voltage caused by faults
the need for reliable protective devices such as relays and circuit breakers arises.
 A fault in an electric power system can be defined as , any abnormal condition of the system that
involves the electrical failure of the equipment, such as , transformers, generators, bus bars, etc.
 Electrical faults in three-phase power system mainly classified into two types, namely open and
short circuit faults. Further, these faults can be symmetrical or unsymmetrical faults.
 "A current limiting reactor, also called a series reactor, is a coil which has high inductive
reactance as compared to its resistance."
 These reactors are used to limit the short circuit current and the effect of resulting voltage
disturbances during fault conditions.
Posttest:
1.What is a current limiting reactor? why it is used?
2. What is the need of protective system?
3.Define a fault?
Home assignment:
1. What is a symmetrical fault?
2. Fig i shows the single line diagram of a 3 phase system. The percentage reactance of each
alternator is based on its own capacity. Find the short circuit current that will flow into a
complete 3 phase short circuit at F.