SWITCHING TRANSIENTS IN CABLE-CONNECTED MOTOR SYSTEMS PROF. M.S. AGARWAL & LT. CDR. A. ANAND Department of Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay lL ABSTRACT ‘The performance of a power system and. the behaviour of the components that constitute such a system can be determined realistically with the help of computer simulation tools. EMTDC is one such package which utilises electromagnetic transient simulation to analyse and examine a complicated or non-linear model or process. In this paper, the nature of switching: surges has been investigated and a quantitative evaluation of these switching transients in high voltage cable-connected motor systems has been presented. Two standard circuits viz., the IEC circuit and the CIGRE circuit have been assumed as the benchmark model to simulate motor switching using EMTDC, the performance of both the models are tested by subjecting it to disturbance and parameter varistors. ‘The magnitudes and risetimes of transients generated during switching with certain protective devices like surge capacitors, R-C surges suppressors and ZnO Varistors have also been ascertained Keywords : Switching transients, Motor switching 2 INTRODUCTION Switching transients in high-voltage motor systems are generated due to sudden changes in the circuit conditions brought about by deliberate or unintentional. switching operations. When the starting current to a large capacity induction motor is interrupted. high overvoltages may arise which could endanger the insulation of the winding. The circuit breakers in these type of systems are subjected to very severe duties during motor starting. 3. PHENOMENA OF SWITCHING ‘SURGES ‘Switching surges varying over a wide range of shapes and values are generated due to any of the following (1) (2) Phenomena of current chopping (6) Reignition phenomenon (c) (4) Mechanism of prestriking transients Current chopping is perhaps the most common canse of surges. The energy stored in the magnetic circuit, of the motor at the time of chop is 1/2'L I. The current in the motor cannot be suddenly brought to zero due to its large inductance, The current flows into the stray capacitance of the motor which is generally small. During this period the dielectric Strength of the circuit breaker gap is limited. The circuit breaker is capable of. interrupting high frequency currents. _ Since transfer of transients between phases take place during interruption, an ‘overvoltage is created. The voltage across the load fi "reases to a maximum and thereafier oscillates with a frequency governed by the circuit elements The overvoltage is caused hy the Feleace nf magnetic ‘energy stored in the load inductance at'the moment of current chopping. | Multiple reignition isa phenomenon associated. ‘vacuum circuit breaker (VCB) opening, near current zero. A VCB is able to immediately extinguish the are at this current zero due to its high interrupting ability. Since the gap. distance is insufficient to withstand the recovery voltage appearing immediately “after current ‘interription,”'the VCB reignites. The reighiting’ current frequencies are generally’ very! high. VOB" dnterrupts! this “high frequency current immediately and high ‘recovery voltages appear again’ thereby\ forcing. reignition This phenomena tepeats for a’. while at each {mn virtual current chopping, a surge voltage is caused by three phase non-simultaneous._ interruption, Initially, the first pole cleared is reignited. ‘This feignition current is of a high value and high frequency and flows into the other two poles through interpole eapacitanes. Hence, high frequency current {s superimposed on ‘the high power ‘frequency Surrents' in the other poles. Thus a current zero ‘ithree poles is simultaneously forcibly created, In the latter two poles, the current appears to be chopped at a very high value: A prestrike occurs when @ circuit breaker closes due to-arcing between the closing contacts. The resultant current’ is: a sum of a damped high: frequency oscillatory current in the range of 1 MHz (depending on distributed circuit’ parameters), a medium frequency damped oscillatory current in the rage of | to 10kHz (depending on the natural frequency of the load)-and the power frequency current. In this case, the stress/on the second pole is generally higher because this pole experiences full line to line voltage with ungrounded loads and the transient from the closing of the first pole is transferred through the ‘motor and appears with overswing to stress this pole. 4 SIMULATION TECHNIQUES ‘Studies of the phenomena described above have been carried out using simulation studies on computer employing equivalent circuits for systems. Standard motor circuits have been simulated using EMTDC (Electromagnetic: Transients Simulation) software package. A simple system comprising an induction motor energised through’a cable is considered. 5 COMPOSITION OF TEST CIRCUITS Over-voltages are generated at the circuit-bregker terminals during its on and off operations and fed to squirrel-cage or slip-ring induction motors and synchronous motors. The three phases of the circuits breaker are usually not energised simultaneously and a certain spread in time will exist due to differences in contact travel Two standard circuits. viz. the CIGRE circuit and the IEC circuit are considered as ‘equivalent circuits during the starting of motor. In the CIGRE (2} circuit and the IEC [3] circuit, the source, the bus bar and the motor are replaced by _ their lumped parameter equivalents and the cable by its distributed parameter equivalent. The circuits are evaluated for the performance of circuit-breakers using actual cable elements with the motor replaced by a motor substitute circuit rigged up from physical R, Land C elements. 6, COMPUTER SIMULATION OF SWITCHING SURGES Electromagnetic transient simulation is. a field) of study which allows one 0, analyse and examine a 447 complicated or nonlinear model or process, A quantitative evaluation of switching surges. in high Voltage motor systems has been carried out under different operating conditions. using the EMTDC. (Electromagnetic Transients DC) program [4]. 6.1. EMTDC Program EMTDC as, a. simulation. tool models.-resistors. inductors. capacitor circuit elements, mutually coupled windings, cables. distributed: multi-phased luntranspored transmission lines, sources, switches, thyristors, diodes etc.. Voltages at nodes and currents in branches can be easily measured. ‘The purpose of the basie structure of the main program is: (@) Read the data defining. electric circuit parameters: Assemble networks of resistor, inductor and capacitor components with sources; Interface ‘a users’ model in. sub-routine DSDYN (Digital Simulator Dynamic Sub routine) with the electric network: + At the’ users’ definition, any computed quantity can be formulated or processed by ‘modelling statements using DSOUT (Digital ‘Simulator Output Sub routine) During or at the end of the run, the complete network and / or its associated. dynamic model defined in DSDYN can be frozen in time for future use ina “snapshop" file. Multiple re-runs can also be automatically initiated to search for optimum value of a parameter. () © @ (e) 62» Test Circuit Simulation Figure 1 shows the: three phase equivalent circuit diagram of cable-connected motor system including the supply circuit [4]. The three phase supply neutral is earthed through a high resistance so that the supply voltage “is defined. with respect to earth. The resistance value is high enough to limit a prospective Jine'to-earth fault current 10 a value below’ the test current. Two standard circuits as suggested by CIGRE Working Group No.13-02 [2] and IEC+(3] simulate the rotor locked motor. The parameters of the circuit have been chosen to represent a relatively severe case with respect to overvoltages and_will cover the majority of service application. Figure | and Figure 2 represent the CIGRE circuit and the IEC circuit respectively.Both the: circuits represent three phase induction ‘motor under standstill rotor condition. The power frequency,-impedance is represented by the linear inductance L. and resistance R for reach phase. The value of i. and Ras calculated from test voltage, required starting current and associated power factor are shown in Table I. The natural frequency and damping of the circuit are adjusted by means of capacitances C, to earth and parallel resistance R,. 63. Characteristics of Supply Circuit ‘The supply side capacitance C, is represented by three capacitors connected in star with neutral solidly earthed. Two different ranges for the value uf supply side capacitance are recommended in IEC standards. Hence. in simulation, wo different supply systems are used for investigating transients in the CIGRE and IEC circuits. Three-phase: voltage source is simulated in EMTDC with the kelp ofa subroutine ESYSI which interfaces to the electrical circuit (4]. The three phase voltage source is assumed in the star configuration in the simulated circuit. The frequency, the phase angle andthe voltage magnitude can be held constant or varied throughout: the: solution through access to parameters within the subroutine arrangement. The bus bar connecting the source to the breaker is represented by an inductance of Ly = 6.6 wl / 30 ull as prescribed by IEC and CIGRE WG in simulation studies. 64 Modeling of Cable ‘The cable capacitance is a predominant constant for the cable. The inductance of the cable contributes substantially in surge impedance calculation. However. the value of resistance being small, its effect in reduction of» overvoltages. through issipation of energy in surge is neglected in the simulation study. The cable is represented as a network. of impedance and capacitance. The cable constants’ are entered in the DATA file as branch data. 6.5 | Modeling of Circuit Breaker ‘The interaction, between the circuit breaker are and the motor circuit is represented by simulating the breaker. During interruption of starting current the circuit breaker duty is characterised by high current and low power factor. Also, since the interrupted current is high, the chopping current can attain high values. Consequently. the overvaltages are higher than when no-load or load current. is interrupted: Finally. reignitions are much more numerous when starting current is interrupted To account for all the above: characteristics, the circuit breaker is modelled in EMTDC by a resistor which has either a very small resistance value of very high resistance value depending on: whether closing or opening is to be simulated. However, this resistance cannot assume zero or infinite value, since ‘numerical instability probiems may arise, A value of 0.1 ohms is used to simulate closed conditions and a value of 1.0E 10 ohms is used to simulate open condition. Circuit breaker awitching in EMTDC by calling subroutine SW {CHS (4) 6.6 Induction Motor Modeling The equivalent circuits of high voltage motor as shown im Figure I and Figure 2'as. suggested: by CIGRE and #17 represent the three phase induction ‘motor under blocked-rotor condition. Damping at higher frequencies due to increased losses in copper and iron is accounted for by adding the parallel resistance R,. Distributed tum-to-turn capacitance and turn-to-ground capacitance contribute to. wave- like propagation of transients through the machine ‘The capacitance of the winding # areumed to be lumped at machine terminals (C,). C, assunes (we discrete values for two different. starting. current values. ‘The load depicted in Figure 1 and Figure 2 is for low Power factor ie. itis highly inductive, As shown in Table I. two load circuits are ‘simulated. one for 100 A ata natural frequency of 10 kHz and the other one for 300 A. in the case of IEC circuit. The parameters of R, L. Ry and C, for different toad conditions are ‘separately entered in the DATA file as’ network branch data and output is recorded each time ‘The toad circuit is a three-phase load. The motor substitute cireuit is connected to the cirevit breaker. Series connected resistors and inductors are arranged to obtain a current 100 + 10A and 300 = 30A at a Power factor less than 0.2 lagging. The star point is ungrounded. The load parallel’: resistance »is connected in parallel with each phase impedance and the stray capacitance C, is connected between each Phase and earth. The mator substitute circuit thus has a frequency of 12.5 42.5 kHz and an amplitude factor of 1.7 + 0.1Similarly, for the CIGRE circuit two load circuits are simulated, one for 100 A at a natural frequency of 12.5 + 2.5 kHz and the other one for 200 A. Here the load parallel resistance is connected across the load parallel capacitance in each phase. Appendices A and B show the circuit parameters as per IEC report and CIGRE report respectively. 1. MODELING OF PROTECTIVE DEVICES The protective devices used during simulation studies are surge capacitors, R-C_ suppressors. and. ZnO varistors. These devices are helpful in limiting or sloping the waveforms of switching. surge overvoltages and thus provide protection for turn-to- tum and ground insulation of the motor [5] 7.1 Surge Capacitor Simul ‘Three capacitors are modeled between the three phases and earth at ‘The motor terminal and ‘The circuit breaker terminal @ (b) ‘The capacitance value of these capacitors are 0.5 uF each (1 7.2, Simulation of R-C Suppressor AA resistance value of 100 ohms in series with a 0.5 AF capacitor has been simulated at the motor end and the circuit breaker end in separate DATA files (2) 7.3. Modeling of ZnO Varistors In EMTDC. a large resistive branch specified with positive node numbers in the DATA file is used to model @ metal oxide arrestor. The resistance of the branch is. varied in-a_piece-wise linear fashion to reptesent the slope of the arrestor characteristics! This is accomplished by calling subroutine ZNO (4). SIMULATION RESULTS ‘The analysis of the system under study is carried out with the EMTDC program. In the program, nodal ‘equations are formulated for the system represented by the equivalent networks. The transient is calculated through repeated solution of these nodal equations 8.1 Overvoltage Computation 449, Figure 3. and Figure 4 show the three phase interruption in the IEC circuit and CIGRE circuit respectively. The overvoltages are measured at motor terminals. It is observed that IEC circuit produces more severe overvoltages compared to CIGRE circuit since comparison is carried out for interruption of starting current of 100 A in both the circuits under study. This fact is brought out in Table 0. 82 Effect of Variation in Load ‘A comparison of overvoltages at the load terminals in the TEC circuit for an interrupted starting current of 100 A and 300 A shows that the magnitude of overvoltages decrease with an increase in the load [6]. The fact is ratified by comparison in the CIGRE circuit for interruption of starting currents of 100 A and 200.A.. Table III highlights this aspect. 83 Effect of Protective Devices The digital simulation results of overvoltage at load terminals with surge capacitors at motor terminals shows that the maximum transient voltage is reduced and there is a substantial increase in the risetime of the surges. This leads to a more uniform distribution ‘of surges in the windings thus reducing the stresses imposed on the motor turn insulation, Similarly, the effect of R-C. suppressor placed at motor terminals offers an additional advantage icc oscillations are substantially damped. ‘The highly non-linear characteristics of ZnO Varistors leads to a reduced magnitude of switching surges generated with ZnO varistors. placed at_motor terminals. Table IV compares the Various protection schemes that have been discussed in this paper. 9 CONCLUSIONS ‘The origin of switching surges has been discussed in this paper with special emphasis on_ switching transients in motor circuits. To study the transient behaviour of surges while switching motor loads, models have been developed to represent the necessary components in a generalised test circuit. ‘The standard CIGRE circuit and the IEC circuit have ‘been modeled and simulations were performed with the aid of EMTDC program to. bring out thedifferences between the two circuits. Both these circuits represent three phase induction motor under standstill condition. Parameter variations of the circuit elements were also simulated to investigate their influence on the peak value of switching overvoltages at motor terminals and the following points were observed ~ (a) The IEC circuit generates more severe ‘overvoltages as compared to the CIGRE circuit under the same working conditions (b) The strength of the switching ‘surge decreases with an increase in the load on the motor. (©) Surge capacitors help in lowering the ‘magnitude of switching overvoltages and increase their risetime thereby reducing the severity of the overvoltages. A combination of resistor and surge capacitor leads to a reduction in the TRV frequency. (4) Use of ZnO varistors lower the peak of the switching transients substantially. Damping in the oscillations are also reduced to a large extent. 10. REFERENCES (1) MS.Agarwal, Capt.A. Kohli and M.V Hariharan, “Computer Simulation of Switching Transients in Cable-connected Motor Systems”, International Seminar on Switchgear, Bangalore, 12-13 Nov.1992, pp M1 25-34, 2] CIGRE, W.G.13.02, * Interruption of Small Inductive Currents", Chapter-3, Part- Electra No. 75-1981, pp 5-30. {3} IEC Subcommittee, “Switchgear and Controigear Intemational Electrotechnical Commission", CommittesNo.17A (Secretariat) 291, Aug 1988, pp 1-9. [4] "Manitoba HVDC Research Centre, “EMTDC User's Manual", Winnipeg, Canada, 1987. (3) MS.Agarwal and W.2. > Gandhare, “Protection of High-voltage Utility Motors against Switching Transients", Proc. of Int Conf. on Electrical Systems (ELECTROPIC °96), Jakarta (Indonesia), 23-26 Sept. 1996; Paper No.A.7.4, (6) MS.Agarwal, Fawzy E. Et-Rafai'and MV Hariharan, “Computer Studies of High Voltage Motor Switching Transients", Proc. of Int. Conf, on Energy Management and Power Delivery, Singapore, 21-23 Nov 1995, pp 480-484 APPENDIX A Circuit Parameters as per IEC Report Grewt Supply Supply Parameters | Circuit | Cirewit B | Source Voltage 33k 33K Starting current TO0A TO0.A 300A 300A Power factor S02 502 Supply side | 0042 O01 nF | 1781 635 nF capacitance Bus inductance | “207uH_| S07 pH (Cable Constants Rated voltage SaKV. SRV Type XLPE XLPE Length of able 100 mr 100 m Capacitance Te aF 18 nF [wor aransers | Table Table — APPENDIX B Circuit Parameters as per CIGRE Report | oe [acral Supply Parameters Circuit A Circuit B Source Voltage 3.3 kV 3.3kV Starting current lor A 1OlA 205A 205 Power factor $02 S02 ‘Supply side 0.02 uF 0.02 uF Bus inductance [25-30 uh | 23-30 gH Cable Constants Rated volage SR 33KV Type XLPE XLPE Length of eable 100 m 100m Capacitance 18a 18 nF Motor parameters | Table T TabletTable 1; Parameters of load circuit S ] Freq TR Le TG. 1h Bik ohm) No. | (kl1z) | (Ohms) | (mH) | (nF) .| (A) .| Amplitide factor “is | 18 to | ar [sear | 4260 | Too [3.97 | on 2 [0 | 27 | 19.80 [1279-300 | 1.99] 223 3 [15 [sar svar] 1.895 | 100 | 8.96.) 10.078 a] 5_{_ta7 0 | 5.685 | 300 | 298 | 3.36 s_| 10} 1.905 Tf 3528 | 200 [298 | 3.36_ [es 1905s a6 00 [aa | oe + Table 11 : Load-side over-voltage at different switching instants (Starting Current = 100 A) St. | Switching | First Pole Voltage at Load (pu) No} Instant | to open (msec) TEC Circuit CIGRE Circuit Rox] You [Bye You [ Bs i [338 R, 297 [104 [101 [2.78 [1.03 | or 2] 386 vr 097 sort 300 [0.97 [281 | 101 ‘Table I : Effect of variation of load on load side over-voltage Load (pu) CIGRE Crrevit I SoA = 0A TET 2205, ‘Table IV ; Load side Voltage With Protective Devices JEC Circuit, 1, = 100A Surge Capacitors 2 R-C Suppressors 1.466 3 ZnO Varistors 1.207 | Copecionce Che Dorver Cepecianer jj)” Rojtegd Pavan Ma fag idtor Resttante I mace, Fig io Theet Phase Equivalent tiveuil diagram of Cable Connacted moran S,iktmt, CIDE ewe 451Source ty or 1s > Source Inductance i. buibor Cepsetionce gh ins the este ce: nama! 18,006 = Roiiase: *5,587 17 40,748) -1.412} Ly emis} 4.081) 15000 PH ia Oe wl Fig 3. Loadside voltage, 1€¢ ciseuit , te = 1000 17,509 B48 0598 O.568 @, TT Menai BLO a 620 wy tha “Tig & winadesde, wale CGE | . Hae ie che ce ge 452