Symmetrical Fault in power system

A fault is any abnormal condition in a power system. The steady state

operating mode of a power system is balanced 3-phase a.c. .However, due
to sudden external or internal changes in the system, this condition is
disrupted. When the insulation of the system fails at one or more points or
a conducting object comes into contact with a live point, a short circuit or
a fault occurs.

CAUSES OF POWER SYSTEM FAULTS

· Lightning
· Heavy winds
· Trees falling across lines
· Vehicles colliding with towers or poles
· Birds shorting lines
· Aircraft colliding with lines
· Vandalism
· Small animals entering switchgear
· Line breaks due to excessive loading

Types of faults:
Power system faults may be categorized as one of four types; in order of
frequency of occurrence, they are:

· Single line to ground fault

· Line to line fault
· Double line to ground fault
· Balanced three phase fault

The first three types constitutes severe unbalanced operating conditions

which involves only one or two phases hence referred to as
unsymmetrical faults. In the fourth type, a fault involving all the three
phases occurs therefore referred to as symmetrical (balanced) fault.

A- Fig. balanced three phase fault B- Fig. balanced three phase

1fault to ground

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Faults classifications:-
the faults can be classified into: series fault(open circuit fault) an shunt
fault or (short circuit fault)

EFFECTS OF POWER SYSTEM FAULTS

1-Faults may lead to fire breakout that consequently results into loss of
property, loss of life and destruction of a power system network.

2-Faults also leads to cut of supply in areas beyond the fault point in a
transmission and distribution network leading to power blackouts; this
Interferes with industrial and commercial activities that supports
economic growth, stalls learning activities in institutions, work in offices,
domestic applications and creates insecurity at night.

It is important therefore to determine the values of system voltages and

currents during faulted conditions, so that protective devices may be set
to detect and minimize the harmful effects of such contingencies

Symmetrical faults:-
 A three phase symmetrical fault is caused by application of three
equal fault impedances Zf to the three phases, as shown in fig.
below
 If Zf=0 the fault is called a solid or a bolted fault
 These faults can be of two types:
 A- line to line to line to ground fault (LLLG fault)
 B- line to line to line fault(LLL fault)

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The life of a fault

The life of a fault can be divided into the following times which occur in
sequence:-
1. The sub-transient period which lasts for only a few cycles, These are
the sub transient reactance xd” for the first 10 to 20 ms of fault

2. The transient period which lasts for a much longer period (tens of
cycles), the transient reactance xd' for up to about 500 ms

3. The steady state period which lasts till a major change in the
transmission network takes place (like a circuit breaker opening or a line
failing), the steady state reactance xd (synchronous reactance).

The transient during the short circuit, doubling effect and

DC offset:
 The transient occurs during the short circuit to the three phase
system have inductive property with oppose any sudden change in
the current so the faults are associated with transient
 Doubling effect occurs when the symmetrical fault occur and the
voltage waveform going to zero when maximum momentary short
circuit current will be double value

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  The DC offset current is unidirectional transient component of
short circuit current

Limitation of fault current:-

o When a short circuit occur at any point in a system is limited by
the impedance of the system up to point of fault
o 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 the generator and the transformer and the
impedance of the line between the generator and the point of fault

Advantage of adding reactance:-

1. Reactors limit the flow of short-circuit current and thus protect the
equipment from overheating as well as from failure due to
destructive mechanical forces
2. Troubles are localized or isolated at point where they originate
without communicating their disturbing effects to other part of the
power system
3. They permit the installation of circuit breakers of lower rating

Location of reactors:-

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Fuse:-
Fuse can be seen in fig.below.it opens the circuit whenever exists in the
system. It consists of a thin copper wire enclosed in a glass or casing with
two metallic contacts. The high fault current rises the temperature of the
manual replacement of wire each time when it blows

Circuit breaker:-
One type of the circuit breaker can be seen in fig. below .it is the most
common protection device that can make or break the circuit either
manually or through remote control under normal operating conditions.
There are several types of circuit breakers available depending on the
operating voltage, including air breake,oil,vacume and SF6 circuit
breakers.

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Fault current transients in machines
•The AC current flowing in the generator during the sub-transient period
is called the sub-transient current and is denoted by I”. The time constant
of the sub-transient current is denoted by T” and it can be determined
from the slope. This current can be as much as 10 times the steady-state
fault current.
•The AC current flowing in the generator during the transient period is
called the transient current and is denoted by I’. The time constant of the
transient current is denoted by T’. This current is often as much as 5 times
the steady-state fault current.
•After the transient period, the fault current reaches a steady-state
condition Iss. This current is obtained by dividing the induced voltage by
the synchronous reactance:

Load motor:-
There are three basic types of motors: synchronous motors, induction
motors, and DC motors. DC motors of course may only be connected to
an AC network through some kind of AC/DC rectifier circuit; this circuit
effectively isolates the motor from affecting the AC network during
faulted conditions. On the other hand, synchronous motors and induction
motors are directly connected to the AC network. Although during
normal (unfaulted) conditions, the current flows into the motor (and
therefore would not, of themselves, result in higher fault currents), during

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fault conditions, both types of motors look like a voltage source to the
rest of the network and therefore contribute fault current just as a
synchronous generator does. In fact, for purposes of fault analysis, a
synchronous motor should be treated exactly as we treat a synchronous
generator. Induction motors, on the other hand, differ from synchronous
machines in that they do not have an independent field source. As a
result, induction motors do not sustain their internal voltage. Typically,
induction motor contribution to fault current decays within a few cycles,
before circuit breaker operation, and therefore are not generally of
concern in fault studies

Network Fault Analysis Simplifications

To simplify the analysis of fault currents in networks we will make

several simplifications:
1.Transmission lines are represented by their series reactance
2.Transformers are represented by their leakage reactances.
3.Synchronous machines are modeled as a constant voltage behind direct-
axis sub-transient reactance.
4.Induction motors are ignored or treated as synchronous machines
5.Other (non-spinning) loads are ignored.

solution:-

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Example2:-
Consider a single generator supplying a balanced R+jX load as shown in
the diagram below. The steady-state, pre-fault voltage at bus 2 is 1.02 pu.
Using the impedance values of Zext=j0.1pu, Xd=1.0 pu, X’d=0.2 pu,
X’’d=0.1pu, ZL=j10.0, compute the Thevenin impedance and voltage of
this circuit looking into the network from the fault point at bus 2.

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Solution:-

We compute the Thevenin equivalent circuit from the following:

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Given a fault at bus 2 through a fault impedance of Zf=j0.1pu, compute
the subtransient current into the fault.

If you were to purchase a circuit breaker for bus 2, what is the minimum
interruptible current rating you should ensure that it has?

The circuit breaker must be able to interrupt 1.73 times the rms steady-
state fault current, which would be (to account for the DC component),
Iss =1.73*3.4448=5.9595pu.

Example3:-
The one-line diagram of a three bus system is shown below. Each
generator is represented by an emf behind the transient reactance. All
impedances are in per unit on a 100 MVA base and for simplicity,
resistances are neglected. The following assumptions are
made:
1.Shunt capacitances are neglected and the system is considered on no-
load.
2. All generators are running at their rated voltage and rated frequency
with their emfs in phase.
Determine the fault current, bus voltages, and the line currents during the
fault when a balanced three-phase fault with impedance Z f = 0.16 pu
occurs on

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Solution:-
Part (a): The fault on bus 3 is simulated by connecting a fault impedance
Zf =j0.16 pu as shown in the figure below.

According to Theremin's theorem, the change due to the short-circuit is

equivalent to that caused by the added source Vth = V3(0)with all other
sources shorted as shown on the right, where V3(0) is the pre-fault
voltage at bus 3 (where the fault will occur). It is now easy to solve for
the changes due to the fault. These changes are then added to the pre-fault
values to get the post-fault values.

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The fault current at bus 3 is

Where Z33 is the faulted bus. To solve for this, the delta is first changed to
an equivalent Y then the circuit is simplified as shown next page. Note
that all values are pu.

Why to delta conversion:-

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The short circuit currents in the lines are found as follows:

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