Electrical Systems of Buildings

Chapter 5: Protection Systems

Senior T. A. Abdul Ghani Noori

Energy-Efficient Electrical Systems for Buildings, CRC Press, 2017

Kandahar University
Engineering Faculty
1 Energy Engineering Department 3/7/2022
Table of Contents

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Impact of Electricity on Humans

5.3 Basic Operation of Protection Devices

5.4 Types of Protection Devices

5.5 Grounding and Bonding

2 3/7/2022
5.1. Introduction
 One of the main requirements in the design of electrical systems is to minimize
power outages and damages in case of fault conditions.

 Protective devices provide the means to isolate faulted segments of an electrical

distribution system as quickly and safely as possible.

 Specifically, a protective device has two major functions

1. Detection of faulty conditions

2. Disconnection of the faulted sections from the remainder of the electrical

distribution system.

3
Cont.
 There are several fault types that can occur in electrical distribution systems in a
building including overloads, short-circuits, overvoltage, under voltages, transient
surges, reverse power flows and single phasing in three-phase systems.

 Common faults in buildings are those due to overloads and short-circuit currents.

 Overloads are caused by excessive current demands from utilization equipment.

 Since overload currents flow in normal distribution conductors, they can be

tolerated even though they are difficult to detect without proper protection
devices.

4
Cont.
 Short-circuit currents are caused by some failure in the electrical system such as
insulation breakdown.

 The magnitude of short-circuit currents is significantly higher than that of

overload currents.

 Overload current are limited to 600% of the full load capacity of the electrical
system section affected by the fault

 Any fault currents higher than the 600% threshold are considered to be short-
circuit currents.

5
Cont.
 Two types of short-circuit faults can occur, arcing fault and bolted fault.

1. Arcing faults occurs when unintentional connections between one phase and
another phase or between one phase and a grounded equipment such as when
conductor insulation fails.

 Arcing fault currents tend to be small

but may lead to significant damages
since they may continue to flow due to
the slow response of typical protection
devices.

 The use of ground-fault protection

systems can reduce the often damaging
impact of these faults.

6
Cont.
2. Bolted faults are caused by direct and often accidental connections between
two phases or one phase and a grounded equipment.

 Because of the low resistance of direct connections, bolted faults can be very
large and thus can easily be detected with proper protection devices.

7
Cont.
 Indeed, high fault currents, when allowed to flow without a rapid response, can
cause significant damages to the electrical distribution systems.

 In particular, heat generated by the

flow of fault currents in the
conductors can be so intense that it
can damage the insulation and even
the conductor material itself.

 Typically, the heat generated in a

conductor is RI2

8
Cont.
 In this chapter, common protection devices are presented to eliminate or reduce
the impact of fault currents that may occur within various section of electrical
distribution system for buildings.

9
5.2. Impact Of Electricity On Humans
 The ability of the human body to conduct electricity depends on several factors
including part of the body, weight, gender, and level of wetness.

 When a body is wet, the electrical resistance of a human skin can be as low as
1000–500 Ω. On the other hand, when a person is dry, the skin electrical
resistance can be as high as 100,000–600,000 Ω.

 When considering only the internal organs of a human, the electrical resistances
are generally lower.

 For instance, the electrical resistance from a hand to a foot ranges from 400 to
600 Ω. The electrical resistance from ear-to-ear is only 100 Ω.

10
Cont.
 Dalziel found that the impact of electrical shocks is different for men and women
and depends mainly on the magnitude of current, I, and its duration, t.

 He expressed his result by the following equation:

Where,
 I (mA) is the threshold level of current that causes fibrillation.
 k is a constant depending on the shock energy and is determined empirically.
 t (s) is the duration of the application of the current to the human.

 His results are the base for the safety guidelines and shock hazard information
available currently for the electrical power system industry.

11
Cont.

12
Cont.
 An electric current as small as 0.3–0.4 mA flowing through a body can provoke
an involuntary reaction and may cause accidents as secondary effects.

 Shocks with greater currents cause increasingly severe muscular reactions.

 Let-go currents are 16 mA for men and 10.5 mA for women.

 Heart fibrillations can occur when the shock currents reach a magnitude of
100 mA and a duration of 0.3 s.

13
Cont.

14
Cont.

 It is clear that humans can

tolerate more DC than AC for a
given fault duration.

15
Cont. Paths of Electrical Shocks
Touch potential: When the fault current flows from hand to
the other passing through the heart. This touch option may lead
to death.

Step potential: When the fault current flows from a foot to

another. In this case, injuries to internal organs may occur

Touch-step potential: When the fault current flows from a

foot to a hand or vice versa. Depending on which foot or hand
touches the fault source, the current can flow through the heart
and may result in death.

16
Cont. Blast Safe Distance
 Electrical blasts can generate high temperatures (up to 8,300°C or 15,000°F) and
high pressures.

 Safety distances should be considered when designing electrical rooms that

house transformers and unit-substations

17
Cont.
 The fatal distance, df, has been estimated to be correlated to the total power
rating of the transformer, MVA rating, and the duration of the short-circuit fault,
tsc (closely related to the response time of the protection device).

 The curable distance, dc, is a distance, at which curable injuries may occur due to
the blast and is estimated by the following equation.

18
Cont.

19
5.3. Basic Operation of Protection Devices
 When a fault starts, the current becomes asymmetrical and slowly stabilizes to a
symmetrical current.

 At the start of a fault, it can be shown that the magnitude and the time variation of
the asymmetrical current depend on the characteristics of the wiring system (R
and L) and the source voltage.

 To illustrate the difference between asymmetrical and symmetrical currents, a

simple model for a fault is considered

20
Cont.

 The source voltage serves both the resistance and the inductance and thus using
Kirchhoff’s law for voltage:

21
Cont.
 The solution for Equation 5.5 considering the source voltage variation of
Equation 5.4 can be shown to be,

22
Cont.
 Thus, the current i(t) is made up of two terms: an alternative current, iac, and a
direct current, idc:

 The AC current that follows the typical sinusoidal variation over time is referred
to as the symmetrical fault current:

 The DC current follows a decaying exponential function over time:

23
Cont.
 The sum of the two currents is often called asymmetrical fault current and is a
combination of a sinusoidal function (AC part) and a decaying exponential
function (DC part).

24
Cont.
 To estimate the magnitude of the symmetrical current, a quadratic sum of both
AC and DC parts is considered:

 Thus, the magnitude of the asymmetrical current is proportional to the magnitude

of the symmetrical current (represented by Iac,rms):

 With the constant of proportionality K(t) depending on the time response of the
protection device, t:

25
Cont.

 Considering Eq. 5:13, two limiting cases can be considered:

1. Worst case: t = 0 and sin(α – θ) = 1; in this case, K = 3 =1.732.

2. Best case: sin(α – θ) = 0 which can occur when the voltage and the current are
in phase at the start of the fault; in this case, K(t) = 1 independently of the
response time t.

 Thus, in all cases and for all protection devices, the constant K range between 1
and 1.732:

26
5.4. Types of Protection Devices
 The protective devices are generally rated using the following performance
characteristics.

 Maximum continuous voltage that can be applied to the electrical system without
causing the conductor insulation to fail.

 Maximum continuous current that can flow in the electrical system without
resulting in overheating.

 Rated interrupting current defined as the maximum current up to which the

protective device can safely operate to disconnect the electrical system.

 Short-time ratings including the momentary current is defined as the maximum

current that the protective device can withstand without failure.

 Specified time current is defined as the current that the protective device can
withstand for a specified time—typically 0.5 s—without failure.
27
Cont.
 In general, the size of the protective device (Fuse or Circuit breaker) should be
less than the ampacity of the conductor being protected.

 The ampacity is the current that can flow safely in a conductor.

28
Cont. Fuse
 The NEC defines the fuse as an “over-current protective device with a circuit
opening fusible part that is heated and severed by the passage of current through
it” (NEC, 2014).

 For current-limiting fuses, the fusible element is packed in quartz filler and
hermetically sealed inside a ceramic case

 The fusible element has thin sections to facilitate melting when high current flows
while the sand filler helps absorb heat resulting from arcing due to the melting of
the fusible element.

29
Cont.
 Its essential component is a metal wire or strip that melts when too much current
flows through it, thereby interrupting the current.

30
Cont.
 A metal for a fast acting fusible element has to be selected so that it has a high
electrical conductivity, an abrupt melting point, and a small mass to reduce the
heating time.

 Typically, zinc, copper, silver, and aluminum or their alloys have been used for
fuses.

 Air, sand, or quartz can be used as a filler to help extinguish electrical arcs.

 Ceramic, glass, fiberglass, molded mica laminates are used for the casing.

31
Cont.
 Four major steps in the operation of a typical fuse when fault occurs.

1. The fusible element starts to melt until arcing occurs.

2. A significant heat is generated between the two arcing and melting ends of the
fusible element.

3. At the start of the arcing process, the fault current reaches its peak.

4. Due to this heat, the sand around the arcing melts and forms an insulating layer
around the two ends of the fusible element completely preventing any flow of
current.

32
Cont.

33
Cont.

34
Cont.
 Induction motors require high in-rush currents for the first few cycles after the start
of their operation before their normal rated currents are reached.

 Thus, slow acting fuses with a time-delay response are needed to protect induction
motors

35
Cont.
 However, the use of only one fusible element with slow response to protect against
overloads may not be effective to protect against short-circuit currents.

 Instead, dual-element fuses provide dual protection against both overloads and
short-circuit currents.

36
Cont.
 Average melting time–
current characteristic
curves for low-peak
dual-element fuses.

37
Cont. Main Types of Fuses
 Non-time-delay fuses with single type of fusible elements, often called short-
circuit elements.

 Time-delay fuses constructed with two different types of fusible elements to

protect against both overloads and short-circuits.

 Current-limiting fuses are fast acting and are able to open the circuit and remove
the short-circuit current well before it reaches the peak value.

 Medium-voltage fuses including distribution fuse cutouts and power fuses.

 Medium-voltage current-limiting power fuses including E-rated, C-rated, and R-

rated fuses.

38
Cont.
 The common classes of low-voltage fuses used in building electrical distribution
systems include the following.

 Class H fuses: These fuses can be renewable and nonrenewable and have a
limited interrupting current rating of only 10,000 A.

 They include typically low-voltage cartridge fuses and are rated up to 600 A.

39
Cont.
 Class J fuses: These fuses are nonrenewable and can have interrupting
symmetrical current ratings of up to 300,000 A.

 They are available as non-time-delay fuses and are rated up to 600 A.

40
Cont.
 Class R fuses: These fuses are nonrenewable and have interrupting symmetrical
current ratings of 200,000 A.

 They are available in RK-1 and RK-5 categories and are rated up to 600 A.

 The RK-1 fuses have low let-through peak currents while RK-5 fuses have high
peak let-through currents.

 They can be either non-time-delay or time-delay fuses.

41
Cont.
 Class T fuses: These fuses are nonrenewable and are current limiting with
interrupting symmetrical current ratings of 200,000 A.

 They are typically non-time-delay fuses and are rated up to 600 A.

42
Cont.
 In order to properly protect electrical distribution systems, a good coordination
between the load-side and the line-side fuses is required.

 Typically, the load-side fuse has to react first to any abnormal conditions and thus
should have lower let-thru energy.

43
Cont.
 A recommended selectivity ratio, defined as the ratio between the size of the line-
side fuse and the size of the load-side fuse.

44
Cont.

45
Cont. Advantages
 The main advantages of fuse compared to other types of protective devices (i.e.,
circuit breakers) are summarized here:

 Have low initial cost.

 Require little maintenance since fuses are simple to construct.

 Are generally compact and require little space to be installed.

 Have high current interrupting capabilities.

 Are inherently fail- safe devices since when fuses fail, they automatically open
the circuit.

46
Cont. Disadvantages
 However, fuses also present several disadvantages including:

 Can cause single phasing for three- phase system.

 Are not flexible since the time response of the fuses is fixed and is not
adjustable

 Must be replace after each operation

47
Cont. Circuit Breaker
 The NEC defines the circuit breaker as “a device designed to open and close a
circuit by non-automatic means and to open the circuit automatically on a
predetermined matter without damage to itself when properly applied within its
rating” (NEC, 2014).

 Its basic function is to interrupt current flow after a fault is detected.

 Fuses operate on the

mechanism of detect and act,
circuit breakers operate by
detecting and actuating when
faults occur.

48
Cont.
 The bellow figure shows the basic operation and components of a typical circuit
breaker.

 There are four main components:

1. A moving contact part.

2. A fixed contact part.

3. A sensor.

4. An actuator with a processing unit.

49
Cont.
 When fault occurs, the sensor detects the current flow and sends a signal to the
processing unit.

 Based on its setting, the processing unit decides to stop the flow of the fault
current and send a signal through the actuator to displace the moving contact part
from the fixed part to open the circuit.

50
Cont.
 Circuit breakers can be installed either in single pole or multipole.

 Multipole breakers are generally gang operated so that all the poles are closed and
opened simultaneously by one common operating mechanism (such as a handle).

 Therefore, multipole circuit breakers cannot cause single phasing in three-phase

systems as can be the case when using fuses as protection devices.

51
Cont. Advantages
 Compared to fuses, circuit breakers have the following inherent advantages:

 Can serve as means of both protecting and switching an electrical circuit.

 Does not cause single phasing.

 Can be remotely operated.

 Can easily incorporate ground-fault protection.

52
Cont. Disadvantages
 Circuit breakers have some disadvantages compared to fuses:
 Have higher initial cost.

 Require more space since they are larger.

 Require more maintenance because of their complexity in construction and

operation.

 Do not limit the magnitude of fault currents. Thus, an electrical system is subject
to higher thermal and magnetic stresses under fault conditions when it is protected
by a circuit breaker rather than a fuse.

 Are not fail-safe devices, since their trip mechanism can be damaged and they can
be left in a closed rather than open position.

53
Cont. Types of Circuit Breakers
 Thermal trip circuit breaker

54
Cont.

 Magnetic trip circuit breaker

55
Cont.

 Combined thermal-magnetic trip circuit breaker

56
Cont.

 Solid state power circuit breaker

57
Cont.

58
Cont.

59
Cont.

60
Cont.

61
5.5. Grounding and Bonding
 It is important to properly ground electrical systems to minimize fire hazards,
electrical shocks and injuries to occupants, and damages to equipment.

 NEC requires that all derived electrical systems be grounded.

 There are different types of grounding systems including service grounding and
equipment grounding.

62
Cont. Definitions
 Bonding (Bonded): A way of reducing the risk of getting an electric shock.

 Bonding jumper: A conductor that connects the metallic parts of an electrical

system.

 Ground: Earth used as a medium to reject any fault current flowing in the
electrical distribution system.

 Grounded (grounding): Connected to ground or to a conducting body that

extends the ground connection.

 Equipment grounding conductor: The conductive path installed to connect

normally non-current-carrying metal parts of equipment together and to the
system grounded conductor or to grounding electrode conductor, or both.


63
Grounding electrode: A conducting object through which a direct connection to
earth is established.
Cont.
 Grounding electrode conductor: A conductor used to connect the system
grounded conductor or the equipment to a grounding electrode or to a point on
the grounding electrode system.

 Neutral conductor: The conductor connected to the neutral point of a system

that is intended to carry current under normal conditions.

 Neutral point: The common point on a wye connection in a poly-phase system

or midpoint on a single-phase, three-wire system, or midpoint of a single-phase
portion of a three-phase delta system, or a midpoint of a three-wire, direct current
system.

 Ungrounded: Not connected to ground or to a conductive body that extends the

ground connection.

 Ground fault: An unintentional, electrically conducting connection between a

normally current-carrying conductor of an electrical circuit and the normally non-
current-carrying conductors, metallic enclosures, metallic raceways, metallic
64
equipment, or earth.
Cont. General Requirements for Grounding and Bonding
The following general requirements identify what grounding and bonding of
electrical systems are required to accomplish.

 Grounded systems:

1. Electrical system grounding: According to NEC, electrical systems that are

grounded shall be connected to earth in a manner that will limit the voltage
imposed by lightning, line surges, or unintentional contact with higher-voltage
lines and that will stabilize the voltage to earth during normal operation.

2. Grounding of electrical equipment: Normally non-current-carrying conductive

materials enclosing electrical conductors or equipment, or forming part of such
equipment, shall be connected to earth so as to limit the voltage to ground on
these materials.

65
Cont.
3. Bonding of electrical equipment: Normally non-current-carrying conductive
materials enclosing electrical conductors or equipment, or forming part of such
equipment, shall be connected together and to the electrical supply source in a
manner that establishes an effective ground-fault current path.

4. Bonding of electrically conductive materials and other equipment: Normally

noncurrent-carrying electrically conductive materials that are likely to become
energized shall be connected together and to the electrical supply source in a
manner that establishes an effective ground-fault current path.

66
Cont.
5. Effective ground-fault current path: Electrical equipment and wiring and other
electrically conductive material likely to become energized shall be installed in
a manner that creates a permanent, low-impedance circuit facilitating the
operation of the protection device or ground detector for high-impedance
grounded systems.

 It shall be capable of safely carrying the maximum ground-fault current likely to

be imposed on it from any point in the wiring system where a ground fault may
occur to the electrical supply source.

 The earth shall not be considered as an effective ground-fault current path.

67
Cont. System Grounding Connections
Several options are allowed for grounding building electrical systems. In particular,
NEC permits the following grounding electrodes for service grounding:

 Metal underground water pipe

 Metal frame of the building or structure

 Concrete-encased electrode

 Ground ring

 Rod and pipe electrodes

 Other listed electrodes

 Plate electrodes

 Other local metal underground systems or structure

68
Cont. Basic Grounding Guidelines
 There are three basic rules for specifying grounding electrodes to protect building
electrical systems from fault currents.

 These rules consider derived electrical systems as those served by generators,

transformers, or converters and with no direct connection with other electrical
systems.

Rule No. 1: Each derived system has to be grounded as in figure 5.28. Typically, the
secondary windings of each transformer are grounded using service grounding
electrodes indicated by Table 5.10.

69
Cont.
Rule No. 2: Grounding location needs to be as close to the power source of the
derived system as possible.

 In particular, the grounding should be specified before rather than after the
protection device.

 If the grounding electrode is connected to earth after the protection device, as

noted in the following figure, the derived system becomes ungrounded whenever
the circuit breaker trips.

70
Cont.

Rule No. 3: There should be only one grounding connection per derived system.

 Indeed, connecting a derived system by two or more locations to the earth may
result in return flow of ground-fault current back to the system.

71
Cont. Basic Analysis of Grounding
 In order to facilitate the flow of fault currents into the ground, low resistance
path for the grounding conductor is needed.

 NEC requires that the ground electrode system, connecting the building
electrical system to ground, to have an electrical resistance lower than 25 Ω.

 Several parameters and factors can affect the

resistance of the ground electrode system.

 Figure illustrates the part of the earth medium

around a grounding rod of a depth, L, when
fault or excess currents are rejected to the
ground.

72
Cont.
 The total resistance of the cylinder, made up of mostly ground medium, can be
estimated by the following equation.

73
Cont.

 Thus, the earth resistance is a function of the ground resistivity as well as the
depth of the grounding rod.

 Equation 5.16 indicates that in order to reduce the earth resistance, either the
ground resistivity should be lowered or the rod depth should be increased.

74
Cont.
 Table 5.6 lists the resistivity of various soil materials and liquids. Among the
listed options, seawater has the lowest resistivity.

 Thus, one approach to reduce ground resistivity is to treat earth around the
grounding rod by mixing it with salt.

 Another approach is to increase the moisture content of the soil.

75
Cont.
 The impact of moisture content on the resistivity of top soil and sandy loam is
illustrated in Table 5.7.

 It is clear that higher moisture content results in lower ground resistivity.

76
Cont.

77
Cont.
 Another approach to reduce the earth resistance in case it is not possible to treat
the soil or to dig a deep grounding rod (due to rocky terrain for instance), is to
utilize several short grounding rods connected in parallel.

78
Cont.
 Indeed, the total resistance, Rg, for n resistances connected in parallel, as shown
in Figure, is estimated as follows:

79
Cont. Selection of Service Grounding Conductors
 The service grounding conductor is typically kept bare and does not carry any
current during normal operation.

240 V

120 V

80
Cont.

81
Cont.
 Table 5.8 provides the size of the service grounding conductor depending on the
size of the main feeder conductor.

82
Cont.

83
Cont. Selection of Equipment Grounding
 In order to ensure that all nonelectrical conductive parts of equipment are safe to
touch under normal operation, equipment grounding is required.

 The frames, enclosures, or structural supports of electrical equipment and

distribution systems such as, transformers, switchboards, panels, motor
controllers, motors, generators, cabinets, lighting equipment, and outlet boxes
have to be connected to earth through permanent and continuous paths.

84
Cont.

85
Cont.

86
Cont.

87
Cont.

88
Cont. Estimation of Potential Damages
 Typical ground faults are of the arcing type with low magnitudes compared to
short-circuit currents and thus are more difficult to detect by the standard
protection devices such as circuit breakers or fuses.

 In 480Y/277 V systems, most of the arcing ground faults occur with a potential
peak phase voltage of 390 V ( 2 × 277 V).

 In 208Y/120 V systems, most of the arcing ground faults occur with a potential
peak phase voltage of of 170 V (i.e., 2 × 120 V).

 The potential damages due to fault currents can be estimated using the fault
energy, EFault, expressed in W-cycles as indicated in the following equation.

89
Cont.

90
Cont.

91
Cont.

92
Cont. Ground-Fault Current Interrupters
 To reduce and even eliminate the potential damages associated with ground
faults, additional protection systems are needed.

 In particular, the use of ground-fault current interrupters (GFCIs) is required for

several locations within buildings.

 GFCIs allow the detection of small ground faults (as low as 6 mA) and to
quickly open the circuit to avoid any harm to humans and damages to electrical
equipment.

 There are several GFCI devices including receptacle outlets and circuit
breakers.

 Thus, GFCI circuit breakers have a dual purpose: trip when short-circuit current
occurs and interrupt when ground fault is detected.

93
Cont.

94
Assignment-5

Please solve the following problems from the problems of chapter-5.

5.1 – 5.10

Submit the assignment within one week from the date of completion.

95 3/7/2022
Thank You!

96 3/7/2022