Measuring Techniques and Surge

Testing

Measurement of Random disturbances

Need for Measurement
- Occurrence of Electrical Transient is quite an
unpredictable phenomena. Ex. Transients caused by
lightning and by faults.
- There are situations where the origin of transient is
unknown which had caused failure of the equipment.
- To identify and record such transients requires special
equipments and techniques. In most of cases the
measuring and recording system must operate
unattended for a prolong period of time.
- So the equipment must be rugged and highly reliable.

Transient Overvoltage level recorder

Sometimes it only needed to know that how
often the voltage transients exceed the
particular limit.
This calls for a switch which will allow the
counter to update when the transient voltage
exceeds the limit ,otherwise not allow.

 When the surge signal exceeds the reset level the

transistor is caused to turn on.
This in turn turns on the thyristor T2 which acts
as an amplifier releasing sufficient energy from a
charged capacitor to operate the electromagnetic
counter.
Many such devices are connected in parallel at
increasing sensing level. This helps in knowing
how much transients have exceeded a particular
voltage level.

Measuring points
80 MVA 765/138/34.5 KV

500 MVA 25/765KV

Measuring points

 The measurement circuitry is same for both

765kV and 138kV circuit.
The voltages are acquired from appropriate
bushing capacitance tap.
The metal enclosure is connected to the tap
which contains a padding capacitor, a spark
gap to protect from overvoltages, a shorting
switch to remove voltages from circuit in
event of component failure and a line driver
resistor to terminate measurement cable.
The output of the padding capacitor is
connected to the co-axial cable and steel
conduit to the input of shielded fiber optic
transmitter.

 The enclosure contains a low pass RC filter to

damp oscillations on the cable, a metal oxide
varistor to suppress potentially damaging
transients , a compensated attenuator to
reduce the voltage level, a buffer amplifier for
impedance matching, a fiber optic transmitter
module and a d.c. Supply.

 The monitored potentials are transmitted by means of fibre optic

system fro T1 to T3 to an EMI shielded instrumentation cabinet in
the 765 kV switch yard.
The transmission uses voltage-frequency and frequency-voltage
conversions.
The carrier frequency is 9.5 MHz which is modulated at 1 MHz.
After filtering the output of the receiver is fed to digital recorder
and to triggering circuit.
The 12 channel 12 bit computer controlled recorder has a 200ksps
sampling rate and can store temporarily two events consisting of 12
channels of 32284 samples each including 50ms of pre trigger.
Triggering of recorder is accomplished whenever a phase voltage
exceeds its nominal level by 15%. A high pass filtered (300 Hz
cutoff) phase voltage exceeds 20% or the zero sequence (Va+Vb+Vc)
exceeds 15%.

Random surge monitoring due to

motor starting

1.
2.
3.
4.

The test was carried out on 33 machines of a power plant to find whether the fast
transients, particularly on closing, could be threatening to inter-turn insulation.
Recording system for motors switched by both air magnetic CB and vacuum CB
were built.
The system composed of :Wide band voltage dividers
Digitizing unit for recording voltage w/f
Trigger and timing circuit to control digitizers sampling rate
Computer for data storage.
The most important part of the transient to be measured or monitored is the
initial steep fronted portion as it is the most destructive for the motors interturn insulation.
So the sampling rate of the digitizer/DSO must be very high in this region. In case
of motors switched with vacuum CB, have multiple transients. A monitoring
system for this system must vary the digitizers sampling rate many times during
one recording.

Specifications of Monitoring system of

air magnetic CB switched motor.
Three capacitive voltage divider circuits
connected to each phase, as close as to the
motor terminal winding.
The capacitive voltage divider circuits were
constructed from 15kV class cable and had a
bandwidth of 10 MHz and provided a division
ratio of 200:1.
The overall monitoring system is capable of
recording voltage surges up to 40 kV with rise
time as fast as 50 ns.

Specifications of Monitoring system of

Vacuum CB switched motor.
Due to multiple re-ignitions in the vacuum CB during the switching
more sophisticated instruments for recording need to be used
which are capable of capturing large no of high speed transients.
The system consists of :1. Three 200 MHz digitizers each of which is capable of sampling a
voltage w/f every 5ns and can store up to 64K samples.
2. Voltage surges are detected by high voltage probes connected
directly to the motor terminals. The probes are designed to
withstand impulses of 40kV and provide a division ratio of 1000:1.
3. Surges with rise time as fast as 25ns could be recorded with 10%
accuracy by monitoring system.
4. A custom trigger and timing circuit is used to control the rate of
sampling of the digitizer.

Measurement of fast transients

There are occasions in power system studies
where we need to do some high frequency
measurements. So it is necessary to have
equipment which can measure such high
frequency signals.
This may be because there are oscillations in
the signal which may excited due to some
switching or it is needed just as to resolve the
very short rise time accurately.

 One such example is of the transients occurring in the

GIS.
When the disconnect switch is opened in a GIS it will
disrupt or break a small capacitive current. In doing so
it may some time re-strike. The same phenomena
occurs while the closing of the contacts which is known
as pre-strike.
Due to the arrangement of the switch and bus i.e. its
co-axial arrangement leads to a very low inductance of
the circuit.
The rise time of the re-striking voltage is given by
tr=*sqrt(L*C).
So as L and C are small so the rise time will be very
small and hence the rate of sampling must be high to
measure this time.

Some approaches for high frequency

transients measurements
Problems due to interference in the measuring circuit and its
remedy
1. The initial approaches of using the capacitance voltage divider in
measuring random disturbances with small length of cable
possesses a problem with measurement of fast transients.
2. When the transient voltage across a spark gapset to spark over
between 15 and 20 kV was viewed and photographed at high
sweep speeds, it was readily apparent that spurious high
frequency signals were getting into both the horizontal and
vertical deflection systems of the oscilloscope. Some of the
coupling for the spurious signal was traced to the impedance of
the ground circuit of the plug-in pre-amplifier. There was also a
substantial amount of deflection caused by signals that
penetrated the cabinet of the oscilloscope and some deflection
was also caused by conduction into the cabinet over the a-c
power supply to the oscilloscope.

3. A considerable reduction in spurious signals

could be achieved by increasing the distance
between the oscilloscope and the spark gap.
Under certain conditions, the spurious signals
could be practically eliminated by locating the
oscilloscope in an adjacent laboratory room with
separate power cable ducts and with the signal
cable connected to a direct deflection adapter on
the oscilloscope.
4. In one system, transmission of the highfrequency components of transient voltages over
the long signal cable required by a remote
location of the oscilloscope was accomplished by
a differentiator-integrator combination.

The differentiator and integrator

circuit

 The differentiator and integrator circuit is used

where there is need of considerable
attenuation of the signal.
In this method the signal is first differentiated
and the integrated to reconstitute it.

Differentiating
circuit
-Voltage across R is
proportional to the current
and the voltage across
capacitor is proportional to
the integral of that current.
- If the impedance offered
by the capacitor is made
dominant at the frequency
of interest i.e. 1/C>> R1
then the voltage across C1
will be practically in phase
with input voltage and the
voltage across the resistor is
practically in quadrature and
therefore is proportional to
its derivative.

Integrator circuit
- Here the resistance R1 is
dominant impedance over
the impedance of
capacitor i.e. R2>>1/ C2.
- Therefore the voltage
across R2 will be practically
in phase to input voltage
whereas the output
voltage i.e. Voltage across
C2 should be in quadrature
to the current I2 and is
proportional to the
integration of the input.

 If these circuits are put together, where the o/p of the

one becomes the input of the other, its is apparent that
the output will be proportional to the input but will be
considerably attenuated.
If the angles are such that = , then the input and
output voltages are in phase or directly antiphase. This
occurs when
RC=1/RC
=1/(RCRC)^(1/2).
For the frequencies greater than or less than this
values the differentiator/integrator will produce more
attenuation, or, viewed as a potential divider. Plotting
the frequency response curve for this circuit the 3dB
roll off frequencies are defined by
=1/(RC) and =1/(RC).

Now the ratio of output to

input of the R1C1 circuit is,

Now for the differentiator

circuit the condition is
1/C>> R1. So the
approximated expression is
given by,

Similarly for the R2C2 circuit

the ratio is,

Using the condition for the integrator circuit

i.e. R2>>1/ C2. the approximated expression
becomes,

The ratio of input to output of the combined circuit

is

which is independent of frequency.

Example :R1= 50 (typical surge impedance of the cable to be used)

C1=5pF (for minimum circuit loading)
Then we have R1*C1=2.5x10^(-10)
Thus =1/(RC) =4x10^(9) and therefore f1=640 MHz
For a desired attenuation of 5000:1 , we have
RC=5000RC= 1.25x10^(-6)
=8x10^(5) and f2=0.13MHz.
The point of maximum gain and zero phase error is given by
=1/(RCRC)^(1/2)=5.66x10^(7) and f=9 MHz.

 The higher frequency limit is resulted from the desire to

have the minimum loading of the test circuit, while the low
frequency limit f2 resulted from desire to produce mild
attenuation.
Precaution must be taken to keep the input connection
inductance low (capacitor C and leads) so that they will not
resonate at frequencies within the pass band.
For example assuming C1=5pF, resonance occurs for an
input inductance L1 at
r^2=1/L1C1.
For systems with upper frequency limit of 100
MHz(=6.28x10^8 rad/s), r should be 2x10^9 or higher,
so
4x10^18=1/L1C1
L1=0.05H
This represents a very small loop inductance and points out
the need of close coupling between probe and circuit.

Case studies in transient

measurements
The following case studies are discussed,
1. Measuring the arc voltage of a high voltage
fuse.
2. Measurement of current near current zero
3. Overvoltage control during Reactor switching
4. Measuring fast front transients in SF6

1. Measuring the arc voltage of a high voltage fuse

Problem:- The current is high(tens to thousands of amperes)
and the voltage across the open fuse can be high, once the
fuse has blown, though the arc voltage itself modest.
Some loop in the voltage measuring circuit is present that
picks up the induced voltage as shown by shaded area in the
fig. b above from the high magnitude, high frequency current
that passes through the fuse as it blows. This can be
comparable or more than arc voltage.

 The problem of induced voltage pick up is solved by

first making a test with the fuse replaced by a slug, a
copper rod with very low resistance.
The voltage then measured was essentially the induced
voltage. It was recorded digitally and stored.
The test setup was then made and the fuse was blown
and the voltage was recorded digitally.
The presence of arc voltage opposes the flow of
current thereby reducing the current to some extent.
Compensation for this is achieved by increasing the
charging voltage to the capacitors.
When comparable current is obtained, the voltage of
the slug test is subtracted from the voltage obtained in
the fuse test and result is shown on the oscilloscope.

Raw current and voltage data

Voltage from slug test

Deduced current and voltages

Fig. A - fig. B. Both the arc voltage and
current are in phase

Arc resistance ratio of arc voltage to

arc current at sequential instants.

2. Measurement of current near current zero

Background:
- Success or failure to interrupt the arc depends
on the events that occur in the interrupting
chamber(s) of the breaker in a time very close
around the current zero.
- To know the precise current and voltage at
this time is necessary in design of the circuit
breaker

 Problem
- The peak of the currents may exceed several
100kA, but the area of interest is the last tens
of amperes immediately prior to current zero
and the current that flows after current zero
driven by the TRV.
- This current is to be measured. Moreover, the
post arc current contains a displacement
component because of local stray capacitance
which must be extracted from the measured
current to reveal the original value of the
conduction current flowing in the plasma.

-The current from the

source passes through the
test breaker but not
through the co-axial shunt
S1 which is by passed by
the vacuum interrupter(VI)
-As the current approaches
zero and values that S1 can
safely handle VI opens and
its arc voltage commutates
the current into S1.
-The transfer of the current
is rapid being limited only
by the loop inductance
between S1 and VI.

 The voltage across S1 is now sent to the recording

oscilloscope through a fibre optic link.
In a successful experiment where the TB
interrupts, S2 continues to sense the current in
the post arc period.
If the TB fails to interrupt the current, a fresh half
cycle of power current is initiated.
The diodes does not allows the voltage across the
shunt to exceed the diode forward voltage which
is safe for the shunt. However the diodes need to
withstand higher voltages.
The test is concluded by closing of the fast acting
switch.(FCS)

Fig.a Raw current

Data
Fig.b Final traces
of voltage and
Conduction current
(after compensation
for displacement
current).

Fig.c decay of plasma

Conductivity after
current zero