Parameter identification techniques applied to

dynamic MOSA models

T. s. Xavier*, G. R. s. Lira*, E. G. Costa* and M. J. A. Maia**
*Departamento de Engenharia Eletrica
Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Campina Grande, Paraiba, Brazil
**Companhia Hidroeletrica do Sao Francisco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil
thaina.xavier@ee.ufcg.edu.br

Abstract: The metal-oxide surge arresters (MOSA)
equipment used in power systems protection against several kinds
of surges. They decisively contribute for the increase of the
reliability, economy and continuity of the system operation, which
they protect. Due to the importance of the MOSA for the electrical
systems, several models have been proposed to represent the
MOSA behavior under overvoltages. The majority of the existing
models employ empirical adjustment procedures
determination of models' parameters. So, a comparative study
about numerical techniques applied to parameter identification of
metal-oxide surge arrester models is presented. These techniques
are based on the fitting of the residual voltages measured and
obtained from the surge arrester models, from the 10 kA lightning
current impulse (wave shape 8/20 Jls). Optimization algorithms
with characteristics of global convergence were evaluated. The
employed procedures have provided good results, showing that it
is more accurate to apply optimization algorithms to identify the
MOSA models parameters than empirical procedures,
increasing the reliability of the modeling process.
I. INTRODUCTION
The metal oxide surge arresters (MOSA) are equipment used
to protect power systems, especially against switching and
lightning surges. Therefore, MOSA are indispensable because
they prevent damage at other equipment, such as transformers,
and thus helping to avoid the discontinuity of the system
servIce.
Due to the impossibility to test the arrester in real operating
conditions, since a power system may not have its operation
interrupted and major equipment could be damaged, there is an
enormous necessity of establishing the electric models that
represent the MOSA behavior. Therefore, events that happen in
reality can be simulated and thus it can get an idea of how the
arrester behavior.
Several models can be found in the literature and each one
has a special procedure for the estimation of its parameters, but
most procedures is based on experimentation, i.e., no
mathematical formalization is performed. Thus, in this paper
selected effective techniques for identifying parameters of
MOSA models are presented.
are filter has a low impedance and the nonlinear resistances AO and
A1 are essentially in parallel. However, for fast-front surges the
R-L filter has a high impedance. Consequently, the current is
forced to pass through the non-linear resistance AO more
intensely than through the non-linear resistance A1. Because
AO has a higher voltage characteristic than Al (as shown in
for Fig. 2), the result is that the model generates a higher voltage
for fast transients. This characteristic generates the dynamic
effect of the model. The inductance LO is the inductance
associated with magnetic fields nearby the surge arrester, the
capacitance CO simulates the capacitive effect of the surge
arrester and resistance RO is used to avoid numerical instability
during the model simulation.
To determine models parameters values, the initial guess are
suggested [1]:
thus L1 lSdjn;
= (1)
R1 6Sdjn;
= (2)
LO O.2djn;
= (3)
RO 100djn;
= (4)
CO 100njd;
= (5)
where d is the estimated height of the arrester in meters n is the
number of parallel columns of the arrester.
A. Numerical Solution a/the IEEE MOSA Model
Before applying the parameter identification techniques
presented in this paper it is necessary to solve the IEEE model
circuit and thus obtain the voltage Vl(tJ for the 10 kA lighting
impulse current i(t). The circuit shown in Fig. 1 was solved by
the discretization of the differential equations of the elements,
using the trapezoidal rule, as presented in [2].
The nonlinear resistances were represented by the piecewise
linear approximation method. This method consists in to
approximate the characteristic curve of a non-linear resistance

II. MOSA MODELING

The parameter identification techniques presented in this

paper were applied to the IEEE MOSA model, which is shown
in Fig. 1. The RL filter between the two non-linear resistances
is responsible, according to the reference [1], for generating the
dynamic effect of the model. For slow-front surges, the R-L Figure t. CUlTent impulse applied to the IEEE MOSA model.
by linear segments in which each segment with inclination R is
represented by a voltage source (whose value is the linear
coefficient of the segment) in series with a resistor with value
R, or a current source in parallel with a resistance R (Norton
equivalent). Applying this method, the following parameters
are obtained: the resistances RAO and RAl and the current
sources IRAO and IRA], as shown in the circuit in Fig. 3, which is
m
where rex) is a vector function r: IRl.n IRl. , with m":2:.n (m is
the number of data points and n is the number of parameters in
vector x). For each x chosen, it's possible to calculate the value
of rex), which is called residue junction, defined as:
rex) = Vm - VlJ (12)
where x is the parametric vector (x {RO, LO, CO, Rl, Ll}), Vm
=

the equivalent discrete circuit. is the vector of residual voltages measured and V1 is the
To solve the circuit in Fig. 3, the node voltages method was residual voltage signal obtained from IEEE model and
used and it was obtained the following equation system, as calculated according to the method shown in Section II-A .
shown in [2, 3]: To minimize the function [(x), the shuffled complex method
[4] was used, which will be discussed in the next section.
(6)
where: A. Shujjled Complex Evolution Method [4]
G is the nodal conductance matrix (p -l) x (p -l) (p is the The shuffled complex evolution method is a global
number of nodes of the circuit), whose elements Gii are equal to optimization strategy based on four concepts: (1) combination
the sum of the incident conductances in the node i, while the of probabilistic and deterministic approaches; (2) clustering; (3)
elements Gij correspond to the negative of the equivalent systematic evolution of a complex of points; (4) competitive
conductance between the nodes i and}; evolution. The method flowchart is shown in Fig. 4.
vet) is the vector of the unknown nodal voltages, with The method's philosophy is compared to the process of
dimension (P-l); natural evolution. Firstly, a population of points is randomly
ic(t) is the vector of dimension (p -l) , whose elements are generated in the feasible space and the function value at each
equal to the algebraic sum of the known current sources point is calculated. Then, the points are sorted in order of
connected to each node; increasing function value. The next step is to partition the
Ih(t-dt) is the vector of dimension (p -l) , whose elements are population into complexes (communities) and each one is
equal to the algebraic sum of the "historical" current sources evolved independently by an algorithm called competitive
connected to each node. complex evolution (CCE) that is based on the NeIder and Mead
For the circuit in Fig. 3, these terms are given as follows. simplex method [5]. Each community can generate offspring
(new points) from a subcomplex selected according to a
G=
probability distribution that favors the best points. The new
1 1 1 1
+- - - o offspring replaces the worst point of the subcomplex. After
Ro RLO RO RLO
- - -

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 process of evolution, the communities are shuffled to form new

+-+-+-+-+- ones and the points are sorted again. This process is repeated
Ro RLO Reo RAO Rl RLl Rl RLl
-

1 1 1 1 1 until the convergence criteria are satisfied.

o -+-+ -
Rl RLl RAl 1.4,---===

(7)

(8)
w
C)

[i
=
ic(t) 1 (t) ] IRAO , (9)

>
1

[
-ho(t-M)
I RA

Ih(t - ::.t) = ho(t-M) - Ico(t-M) - IL1(t-M) ,

IL1(t-M) 1 (10)
aIO2 10
0
Current (kA)
Figure 2. Characteristic of the nonlinear elements AO and A I proposed by
IEEE Working Group 3.4.11.
III. METHODOLOGY

The techniques proposed in this work are based on the fitting

of the residual voltages measured and obtained from the surge
arrester model, from the 10 kA current impulse (wave shape
8/20 us). Therefore, this is a least squares problem in which the
goal is to determine the best model parameters that represent a i(tJ
dataset, minimizing the errors between the model curve and the
points. Thus, the function to be minimized is defined as follows:
:.g;'
1 [ 1 1
[(x) = "2L1 T)(x) ]2 = "2llr(x) 112 = "2r(x)Tr(x), (11) Figure 3. IEEE equivalent discrete circuit.
 L1 was made, as proposed by [1]. The values obtained, with
d= 0.02842 m and n=l, are in Table I. The voltage response
obtained from the IEEE model, for the values in Table I, and
the measured residual voltages are in Fig. 6.
To evaluate the fit quality, there is a parameter called R2,
which is calculated as follows:

(13)

in which Vm and VI are the measured and calculated residual

voltage vectors; m is the number of data points; vm is the
average of the measured residual voltage; SSE is the sum of
squares of the residuals; and SST is the sum of squares about
the mean. The best fit occurs when R2 is equal to 1.
Other analyzed parameters were the residual voltage peak
error ( Ervp ) and the energy error ( Een ) , given by the equations:
max(1v) - max(v)
m
Ervp = X 100% (14)
mx() v
J

m
where VI and vm were defined in the last paragraph;
Ec - Em
Een = X 100% (IS)
Em
J

where Ec is the energy for the calculated residual voltage and

Em is the energy for the measured residual voltage.
Figure 4. Flow chait of the shuffled complex evolution (SeE) method.
For the initial parameters in Table I, the evaluation
parameters are shown in Table II.
B. Residual Voltage Test TABLE I
The purpose of the residual voltage test is to obtain a voltage INITlAL PARAMETERS FOR THE IEEE MODEL.
response for a varistor in the high current region. This test is RO (0) LO (mH) CO ()1F) Rl (0) Ll (mH)
performed by applying a lightning current impulse (8/20 /is) on 2.842 5.7E-6 3.5E-3 1.847 4.5E-4
a varistor. This impulse was obtained by the Current Impulse
Generator (80 kJIl 00 kV) existent in the High Voltage TABLE II
Laboratory of the Federal University of Campina Grande. In RESULTS FOR THE FIRST ESTIMATE.
Fig. 5 is shown a diagram of the experimental arrangement
used in the test. For each set of the values chosen for R, L and
C, a different impulse type can be obtained. The current and
voltage signals derived from the residual voltage tests were
obtained by a shunt resistance (Rshunt) and a voltage divider, The second step consisted of applying the values shown in
respectively, subsequently the signals were processed through a Table I as an initial guess for the shuffled complex method.
data acquisition system composed of a digital oscilloscope and After optimization, the parameters shown in Table III were
a data acquisition routine. obtained. In Fig. 7 is shown the waveforms of the measured
and calculated residual voltages for a lightning impulse.
It is possible to observe that the R2 parameter had an
improvement. The results for the parameters in Table III are in
Table IV.
TABLE III
ESTIMATED PARAMETERS BY THE SHUFFLED COMPLEX METHOD.

RO (0) LO (mH) CO ()1F) Rl (0) L1 (mH)

6,539 9,865E-5 2,777E-3 0,289 7,721E-4

Figure 5. Experimental alTangement used in the residual voltage tests.

TABLE IV
RESULTS FOR THE SECOND ESTIMATE.
IV. RESULTS

Firstly, the IEEE model parameters were calculated by the

equations (1-5) and then a manual adjustment for the parameter
 Time(s)

Figure 6. Measured and calculated residual voltages for the first estimate. Figure 8. Measured and calculated residual voltages for the third estimate.

From the presented results, one may observe the

improvements on the IEEE model response with relation to the
original adjusted parameter procedure due to utilization of the
proposed technique. Nevertheless, the IEEE model has shown a
voltage drop in its tail due to current cross by abscissa axis.
This behavior could not be observed in the measured signals.

V. CONCLUSIONS

In this work, a comparative study about numerical

techniques applied to parameter identification of metal-oxide
surge arrester model was presented. The employed procedure
have provided good results, showing that is more accurate to
apply optimization algorithms to identify MOSA models
parameters than empirical procedures, increasing the reliability
of the modeling process. Besides the good results, the IEEE
Figure 7. Measured and calculated residual voltages for the second estimate. model could not completely represent the measured data.
Additionally, the calculated residual voltage showed a
Another technique used to improve the fit was to modify the significant voltage drop in the tail, which it is not detect on the
curves of the non-linear resistances AO and Al (shown in Fig. measured signal.
2), dividing each curve by a different factor. Thus, the
optimization became a problem with seven parameters. For this
REFERENCES
case, the values for RO, LO, CO, RI and LI are shown in Table
V. [I] IEEE W. G. 3.4.11, "Modeling of Metal Oxide Surge Arresters". IEEE
Transactions on Power Delivery, v. 7, n. 1, p. 302-309, January 1992.
The results for the parameters in Table V are in Table VI,
[2] H. W. Dommel, "Electromagnetic Transients Program Manual (EMTP)
and the resultant curves are in Fig. 8. Again, the R2 parameter Theory Book". Vancouver B.C, Canada: Microtran Power System
had an improvement compared to the previous. The other Analysis Corporation, 1996.
comparative parameters has presented a good performance, too, [3] G. R. S. Lira, D. Fernandes Jr., E. G. Costa. "Parameter Identification
Technique for a Dynamic Metal-oxide Surge Arrester Model", in:
showing the proposed method efficacy.
International Conference on Power Systems Transients, 2009, Kyoto.
TABLE V Proceedings of the International Conference on Power Systems
ESTIMATED PARAMETERS AFTER MODIFYING THE CURVES OF AO AND AI. Transients, 2009.
[4] Q. Duan, V. K. Gupta, S. Sorooshian, "Shuffled Complex Evolution
RO (0) LO (mH) CO (/IF) Rt (0) L1 (mH) Approach for Effective and Ef f iCient Global Minimization ", Journal of
11,912 6,083E-4 3,946E-4 8,199 5,813 Optimization TheOlY and Its Applications, Vol 61(3), 1993.
[5] J. A. NeIder, R. Mead, "A Simplex Method for Function Minimization",
TABLE VI Computer Journal, Vol. 7, pp. 308-313, 1965.
RESULTS FOR THE THIRD ESTIMATE.