1 CORE SATURATION AND CURRENT LIMITING ACTION

In current transformer practice, as already mentioned, core saturation is frequently used to limit
secondary current which could otherwise reach a level high enough to cause damage to
instruments connected into the secondary circuit. It does not appear to be generally known,
however, that a measurement CT with a comparatively low accuracy class can be designed as a
much more effective saturation CT than a measurement CT with a high accuracy class. The
reason for this is explained below:-

If a CT is of low accuracy class, say Class 5 (5% accuracy) the permissible current error is
relatively high and there is, in fact, no limit on the phase error. Consequently the core can be
operated at a fairly high flux density at 125% of rated primary current. A relatively small increase
in primary current above the 125% level will lift the operating point up the magnetisation curve
into the saturation region and current-limiting action will commence.

If, on the other hand, a CT is of relatively high accuracy class, say class 0.5 (0.5% accuracy) and
it makes use of the same core material, the operating flux density at 125% of rated primary
current has to be established much further down the magnetisation curve to reduce the current
and phase errors to the low values required. To keep the errors within the class 0.5 limits, the
designer must work the core over the lower end only of the linear portion of the magnetisation
characteristic, using perhaps only a quarter of the linear portion available. Consequently, if
primary current rises above 125% rated current, the operating point must move a long way up
the linear portion of the curve before the knee is reached. During all of this rise, secondary
current is directly proportional to primary current. By the time current-limiting action begins, the
secondary current is considerably higher than in the previous example.

It follows that this principle applies also in the protection field. If limitation of secondary current is
required in a CT, to avoid damage to a thermal relay, for instance, there is no point in specifying,
say, a class 2.SP CT (with less than 2.5% error at accuracy limit) when a class 10P (with less
than 10% error) would do.