Lecture-6

Power System Analysis

Lecture on
Symmetrical Fault Analysis (Part-1)

Presenter
Kazi Firoz Ahmed
Senior Assistant Professor, Dept. of EEE
American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB)
 Lecture Outcomes
By the end of this lecture, the students should be able to:

1) Classify the different types of fault occurred within a power

system network.

2) Determine the magnitude of fault current throughout the

power system after fault occurs

3) Determine the short circuit capacity of different bus and

corresponding strength of that bus.

4) Solve complex engineering problems related to symmetrical

fault analysis of power system.
 What is Fault?
A fault in a circuit is any types of failures that interfere with the normal
flow of current to the load.
 What are the main Causes of Failure?

According to the causes of incidence, causes of failures may be classified, as

mentioned below

a) Breakdown may occur at normal voltage due to

1) The deterioration or ageing of insulation and
2) The damages caused by unpredictable happenings such as
blowing of heavy winds, tree falling across lines, vehicles
colliding with towers or poles, birds shorting out lines, line
breaks etc.

b) Breakdown may occur due to abnormal voltages caused by

switching surges or lightning strokes which may be either direct or
induced.
Images of power system faults
 Fault Statistics
Table 1: Percentage (approx.) of various types of fault in power system

Table 2: Frequency of fault occurrence in different links of power system

 Fault Statistics …
Table 3: Relative probability of Short Circuit Fault occurrence in power
transmission circuit
 What is Symmetrical Fault?

➢ All the phases are short-circuited to each other and often to earth.

➢ Balanced fault (i.e. systems remain symmetrical)

➢ Rarely occurred

➢ It is the most severe type of fault involving largest current.

Great
importance

Balanced short- circuit calculation is performed to determine

these large currents for Protective System design.
 Transient on a Transmission Line
Assumptions:
1) The line is fed from a constant voltage source
2) Short circuit (SC) takes place when the line is unloaded
3) Line capacitance is neglected
4) Zero fault impedance
5) SC takes place at t=0s, The parameter 𝛼 controls the instant on the
voltage wave when the SC is occurred.
6) The instantaneous voltage equation for the following circuit becomes
 Transient on a Transmission Line
It is known from circuit theory that the current after short-circuit is composed of
two parts

Symmetrical short circuit current

The sinusoidal steady state current is called the symmetrical short-circuit

(steady-state) fault current

The rms value of symmetrical or steady-

state fault current is:
 Transient on a Transmission Line

DC off - set current

The unidirectional transient current is called the dc off-set current

is (or iac) is called steady state or ac current,

it (or idc is called transient or dc current

dc offset current + Symmetrical fault current

= Asymmetrical Fault Current (Total)
 Transient on a Transmission Line
It is known from circuit theory that the current after short-circuit is composed of
two parts

The total current is

called the
asymmetrical
current.

At the instant of applying the voltage, the dc and steady-state components always has the
same magnitude but are the opposite sign in order to express the zero value of current
then existing.
Waveform of 3 phase currents after Symmetrical Fault
 Transient on a Transmission Line

The dc term does not exist, if the circuit is closed at point on the voltage wave
such that (α – θ) = 0 or (α- θ) = π.

The dc component has its maximum initial value, which is equal to maximum value
of the sinusoidal component, if the circuit is closed at point on the voltage wave
such that α - θ = ±π /2.
Waveform of Short Circuit Current on a transient line
 Doubling Effect

The first peak is called the maximum

momentary short-circuit current, Imm.

Since the transmission line resistance is small, θ ≈ 90o.

This is the maximum possible value

for α = 0, i.e. short-circuit occurring
when the voltage wave is going Consider this as max.
through zero. Thus possible current for
circuit breaker selection
(as a safe choice)
 Tutorial:
Problem 1: The source voltage v = 151sin (377t+α) V is applied in the following
circuit where R = 0.125 Ω, L = 10 mH. Find the current response after closing
the switch S for the following cases: (i) no dc offset, and (ii) maximum dc-offset.
Sketch the current waveform up to 3 cycles corresponding to case (i) and (ii).

The current response is then given by

 Short Circuit of Synchronous Machine (no load condition)

Synchronous Reactance

the armature reaction of a synchronous machine produces a demagnetizing flux

which is modeled as a reactance Xa (known as fictitious reactance) in series with
the induced emf.

The combination of fictitious (Xa)

and leakage (Xl) reactances is
called synchronous reactance, Xd

Figure 5: Steady-state short circuit

model of a synchronous machine.

for short circuit studies, we need to concentrate our attention on symmetrical

(sinusoidal) short-circuit current only because of DC off-set current which are
accounted for separately on an empirical basis.
 Short Circuit of Synchronous Machine (SM) (no load condition)

𝐿𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑𝑤 ≪ 𝐿𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑓 𝝉𝒅𝒘 ≪ 𝝉𝒇

Transformer current induced in them so that in circuit

model Xd and Xf will appear in parallel with Xa

Figure 5: Approximate circuit model during sub-

transient period of a short-circuit.
 Synchronous Machine Reactance (after fault)
Sub-transient reactance presented by the machine in the initial period of the
short-circuit

Transient reactance, after the damper winding currents have died out is

Synchronous reactance, after the field

winding currents have died out is:

Obviously
 Fault Currents of SM (no load condition)

If the armature resistance is small, the quadrature axis reactances do

not significantly affect the short circuit current.
 Fault Currents of SM (no load condition)
Using the direct-axis reactances, the instantaneous ac current can be written as:
 Envelop of SM Fault Currents

Symmetrical short-
circuit armature
current in SM

Envelope of SM
symmetrical short
circuit current.
 Different time constants of SM after fault

The duration of I″ is determined by time constant Td′′,

This Td′′ is called the direct-axis short-circuit sub-transient time constant.

When t> Td′′ but t < Td′ => direct-axis short-circuit transient time constant

the first exponential term of above equation has decayed almost zero, but the
second exponential has not decayed significantly.

Since the three-phase no-load voltages are displaced 120o from each other, the three-
phase ac fault currents are displaced 120o fro each other. In addition to that ac fault
current, each phase has a different dc offset. The maximum dc offset in any phase,
which occurs when α=0 is
 Tutorial:
Problem 3: [Ref. 3, p. 363] A 500 MVA, 20 kV, 60 Hz synchronous generator with
Xd′′=0.15, Xd′=0.24, Xd=1.1 pu and time constant Td′′=0.035, Td′= 2.0, TA=0.2 s is connected
to the circuit breaker.
The generator is operating at 5% above rated voltage and at no-load when a bolted three-
phase short circuit occurs on the load side of the breaker. The breaker interrupts the fault 3
cycles after fault inception.
Determine (i) the sub-transient fault current in pu and kA rms,
(ii) the maximum dc-offset as a function of time; and
(iii) rms asymmetrical fault current, which the breaker interrupts,
assuming maximum dc-offset.
(i) The generator is operating at 5% above rated voltage and at no-load when a bolted
three-phase short-circuit occurs, thus Eg = 1.05 pu.
 Problem 3: Tutorial:
(ii) The maximum dc offset that may occur in any phase is:

(iii) The rms ac fault current at t= 3 cycle =0.05 s is

 Tutorial:
Problem 4: [Ref. 1, p. 253] Two generators are connected in parallel to the low-voltage
side of three-phase ∆-Y transformer as shown in Fig. 10.5. Generator 1 is rated 50,000
kVA, 13.8 kV. Generator 2 is rated 25,000 kVA, 13.8 kV. Each generator has a sub-
transient reactance of 25%. The transformer is rated 75,000 kVA, 13.8∆/69Y kV, with a
reactance of 10%. Before the fault occurs, the voltage on the high-tension side of the
transformer is 66 kV. The transformer is unloaded, and there is no circulating current
between generators. Find the sub-transient current in each generator when the three-phase
short-circuit occurs on the high-tension side of the transformer.

Select as base in the high-tension circuit 69 kV, 75 MVA.

Then the base voltage on the low tension side is 13.8 kV.
Problem 4:
Tutorial:
 Problem 4:
Tutorial:

Therefore, as a phasor with Eg=0.957 as reference, the sub-transient current in the

short-circuit is:
Problem 4:
Tutorial:
 Tutorial:
Problem 5: [Ref. 5] A 25 MVA, 11 kV generator with Xd″ = 20% is connected through a
transformer, line and a transformer to a bus that supplies three identical motors as shown in
Fig. 9.8. Each motor has Xd″ =25% and Xd′ = 30% on a base of 5 MVA, 6.6 kV. The three-
phase rating of the step-up transformer is 25 MVA, 11/66 kV with a leakage reactance of 10%
and that of the step-down transformer is 25 MVA, 6/6. kV with a leakage reactance of 10%.
The bus voltage at motors is 6. kV when a three-phase fault occurs at the point F. For
specified fault, calculate:
(i) the sub-transient current in the fault
(ii) the sub-transient current in the breaker B,
(iii) the momentary current in breaker B, and
(iv) the current to be interrupted by breaker B in five cycles.
Given, Reactance of the transmission line = 15% o a base of 25 MVA, 66 kV. Assume that the
system is operating on no load when the fault occurs.
Problem 5:
Tutorial:
Problem 5:
Tutorial:

Choose System base of 25 MVA

Base Voltages, For generator: 11 kV; For line: 66 kV; For Motor: 6.6 kV

After simplification of the circuit, the short circuit

current can be found from the diagram as follows:
Problem 5:
Tutorial:

(iii) For finding momentary current through the breaker, we

must add the dc off-set current to the symmetrical sub-
transient current obtained in part (i). Rather than calculating
the dc –off-set current, allowance is made for it on an
empirical basis.

Momentary current through breaker B = 1.6×7479.5 = 11967 A

Problem 5:
Tutorial:

(iv) To compute the current to interrupt by the breaker,

motor sub-transient reactance
(Xd″ = j0.25) is now replaced by
transient reactance (Xd′ = j0.30).

The reactances of the circuit in previous figure now modify to the above figure. Current
(symmetrical) to be interrupted by the breaker (as shown by arrow)

Allowance made of the dc off- Therefore, the current to be interrupted is

set value by multiplying with a
factor of 1.1.
 Short Circuit Capacity (SCC)/ Fault Level of Bus
SCC is defined by the product of the magnitude of pre-fault voltage (Vf) and the post
fault current (If).

Where ⎪Isc⎪ in amperes is the rms magnitude of the short-circuit current in a three-
phase fault at the connection point.
 Short Circuit Capacity (SCC)/ Fault Level of Bus

If base kilovolt equal nominal kilovolt then

Short-circuit MVA = ⎪Isc⎪ pu

At nominal voltage the Thevenin equivalent circuit looking back into the system from the
point of connection is an emf of 1.0∠0 pu in series with the pu impedance Zth. Therefore,
under short-circuit conditions,
 Short Circuit Capacity (SCC)/ Fault Level of Bus

With resistance and shunt capacitance neglected Zth =Xth,

the single-phase Thevenin equivalent circuit which represents the system is an emf equal
to the nominal line voltage divided by √3 in series with an inductive reactance of

If base kV is equal to nominal kV,

converting to per unit yields
 Strength of a Bus

Pre-fault
Bus voltage = 1 pu

After-fault
The strength of a bus is the ability of the Bus voltage ≅ 0 pu
bus to maintain its voltage when a fault
takes place at other bus:

➢ Strength of a bus related to SCC.

➢ Higher SCC => Higher Bus Strength
Other bus voltages
changes
➢ If XT =0 then SCC = ∞.
For this case the bus is known as Infinite
Strong Bus
 Tutorial:
Problem 6: A small generating station has a bus-bar divided into three sections. Each section
is through a reactor rated at 5MVA, 0.1 p.u. A generator of 8MVA. 0.15p.u. is connected to
each section of the bas bar. Determine the SCC of the bus if a three-phase fault takes place on
one of the section of the sections of bus-bar.

Let the base: 8 MVA in the generator circuit. Xg

= 0.15 pu
 Tutorial:
Problem 7: Two generating station having 1200 MVA and 800 MVA respectively and
operating at 11 kV are linked with an inter-connected cable having reactance of 0.5Ω per
phase. Determine the SCC of each station. Xg1=Xg2= 0.1 pu
 Tutorial:
Problem 7:
 References
[1] Willaim D. Stevenson, Elements of Power System Analysis, Fouth Edition,
McGraw-Hill International Editions, Civil Engineering Series, McGraw-Hill Inc.
[2] John J. Grainger, William D. Steevnson, Jr., Power System Analysis, McGraw-
Hill Series in Electrical and Conputer Engineering, McGraw-Hill Inc.
[3] J. Duncan Glover, Mulukutla S. Sharma, Thomas J. Overbye, Power System
Analysis and Design, Fouth Edition (India Edition), Course Technology Cengage
Learning
[4] Hadi Saadat, Power System Analysis, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company
Limited [5] I J Nagrath, D P Lothari, Modern Power System Analysis, Second
Edition, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Liited
[6] V. K. Mehta, Rohit Mehta, Principles of Power System, Multicolor Illustrative
Edition, S. Chand and Company Limited
[7] AIUB Lecture Notes
[8] Engineering notes
https://www.engineeringenotes.com/