DIgSILENT PowerFactory

Technical Reference Documentation

Impulse Source
ElmImpulse
 DIgSILENT GmbH

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72810 - Gomaringen
Germany

T: +49 7072 9168 00

F: +49 7072 9168 88

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Copyright ©2013, DIgSILENT GmbH. Copyright of this document belongs to DIgSILENT GmbH.
No part of this document may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted in any form, by any means
electronic or mechanical, without the prior written permission of DIgSILENT GmbH.

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 1

Contents

Contents

1 General Description 3

2 Load Flow Analysis 4

2.1 AC Load Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.1.1 Unbalanced Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.2 Calculation parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 EMT-Simulation 5

3.1 Waveform description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3.1.1 Heidler and IEC 62305-1 waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3.1.2 Double-Exponential waveform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3.2 Triggering of the Impulse Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3.3 Signals of the EMT model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3.4 Calculation parameters of the EMT model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

4 References 8

List of Figures 9

List of Tables 10

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 2

1 General Description

1 General Description

A lightning strike can cause damage or affect an electrical installation and persons. In order
to make studies regarding protection of electric-power lines or other electrical installation it is
important to have a model of a lightning strike.

The Impulse Source element (ElmImpulse) is used to represent a lightning strike current wave-
form. It is modelled in PowerFactory as a current impulse source. It is a single-phase, single-port
element and it can be connected to any AC Terminal.

The Impulse Source element is relevant mainly for EMT (instantaneous values) simulations and
for Unbalanced Load Flow calculations.

The ElmImpulse supports three different current impulse waveforms:

• Waveform according to the IEC 62305-1 standard;

• Heidler waveform;
• Double-Exponential waveform.

The equations and parameters of the different waveforms are documented in the following sec-
tions.

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 3

2 Load Flow Analysis

2 Load Flow Analysis

The ElmImpulse element is a single-phase element and therefore it is only being considered for
unbalanced AC Load Flow calculations.

2.1 AC Load Flow

2.1.1 Unbalanced Calculations

The equivalent circuit of the model valid for the Load Flow calculations is depicted in Figure 2.1.

iS (t )
C G uS (t )

Figure 2.1: DIgSILENT Impulse Source Load Flow model

From Figure 2.1 can be seen that the model only consists of two internal parameters (capaci-
tance Ci and conductance Gi ). The model has been introduced to the Unbalanced Load Flow
calculation so that the EMT simulation can be initialised properly.

The default values of the internal parameters are zero which, in this case, makes the element an
ideal source. If the values are set to zero, there will be no current contribution from the Impulse
Source for the Unbalanced Load Flow calculation.

2.2 Calculation parameters

The calculation parameters used in the load flow model are presented in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1: Calculation parameters (AC Load Flow)

Name Symbol Unit Description

Gi Gi S Internal conductance
Ci Ci F Internal capacitance

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 4

3 EMT-Simulation

3 EMT-Simulation

The equivalent circuit of the EMT model is depicted in Figure 3.1. As in the Unbalanced Load
Flow calculation, the current source will be ideal if the internal parameters Ci and Gi are set to
zero.

iS (t )

i (t ) C G uS (t )

Figure 3.1: DIgSILENT Impulse Source EMT model

As already mentioned in Section 1, the user can select between three different waveforms,
which will be presented in the following section.

3.1 Waveform description

3.1.1 Heidler and IEC 62305-1 waveforms

The Heidler waveform is implemented according to [2] and is described by Equation (1):

I (t/τ1 )n
i= · · exp(−t/τ2 ) (1)
k 1 + (t/τ1 )n

where:

• I is the peak current in kA (it can also be negative);

• k is the correction factor for the peak current;
• t is the time;

• τ1 is the front time constant in µs;

• τ2 is the tail time constant in µs;
• n is the exponent or steepness factor.

The IEC 62305-1 waveform is implemented in PowerFactory according to [1] in which lightning
current time functions are presented. The IEC 62305-1 current waveform is defined in Equation
(2).

I (t/τ1 )10
i= · · exp(−t/τ2 ) (2)
k 1 + (t/τ1 )10

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 5

3 EMT-Simulation

Basically, the IEC 62305-1 waveform is equal to the Heidler waveform if the steepness factor n
is set to 10.

The default parameters of the Heidler/IEC 62305-1 source correspond to the LPLI (Lightning
Protection Level) parameters given in [1]. If the values of the internal variables Ci and Gi of the
model are set to 0 (default values), the Heidler/IEC 62305-1 source is an ideal source.

3.1.2 Double-Exponential waveform

The Double-Exponential waveform is implemented according to [3] and [4] and is described by
Equation (3):
I  
i = · exp−t/τ2 − exp−t/τ1 (3)
k

where:

• I is the peak current in kA (it can also be negative);

• k is the correction factor for the peak current;
• t is the time;
• τ1 is the front time constant in µs;
• τ2 is the tail time constant in µs.

The disadvantages of the Double-Exponential function are that the current starts at maximum
steepness and the introduction of a discontinuity at time t = 0.

3.2 Triggering of the Impulse Source

The ElmImpulse can be triggered by the trigger signal. Depending on this signal, the element
can operate in two different states as shown in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1: ElmImpulse Triggering (EMT-Simulation)

State Treshhold
On trigger > 0.5
Off trigger < 0.5

Using the trigger signal, the user can manually turn the output of the Impulse Source on or off.

3.3 Signals of the EMT model

The signals used in the EMT model are presented in Table 3.2.

Table 3.2: Signals (EMT-Simulation)

Name Symbol Unit Type Description

trigger IN Triggers the model on/off

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 6

3 EMT-Simulation

3.4 Calculation parameters of the EMT model

The calculation parameters used in the EMT model are presented in Table 3.3.

Table 3.3: Calculation parameters (EMT-Simulation)

Name Symbol Unit Description

I0 I0 A Peak current
k Correction factor for the peak current
tau1 τ1 s Front time constant
tau2 τ2 s Tail time constant
n Exponent or Steepness factor
Gi Gi S Internal conductance
Ci Ci F Internal capacitance

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 7

4 References

4 References
[1] IEC 62305-1 protection against lightning - part 1: General principles.
[2] F. Heidler and J. M. Cvetic. A Class of Analytical Functions to study the Lightning Effects
associated with the Current Front. ETEP, 12(2), March/April 2002.
[3] F. Heidler, J. M. Cvetic, and B.V Stanic. Calculation of Lightning Current Parameters. IEEE
Transactions on Power Delivery, 14(2), April 1999.

[4] F. Heidler, W. Zischank, Z. Flisowski, Ch. Bouquegneau, and C. Mazzetti. Parameters of

Lightning Current given in IEC 62305 - Background, Experience and Outlook. In 29th Inter-
national Conference on lightning protection, 2008.

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 8

List of Figures

List of Figures

2.1 DIgSILENT Impulse Source Load Flow model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3.1 DIgSILENT Impulse Source EMT model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 9

List of Tables

List of Tables

2.1 Calculation parameters (AC Load Flow) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3.1 ElmImpulse Triggering (EMT-Simulation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3.2 Signals (EMT-Simulation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3.3 Calculation parameters (EMT-Simulation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Impulse Source (ElmImpulse) 10