CHAPTER-1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The fault is the abnormal condition of the electrical system which damages the
electrical equipment and disturbs the normal flow of the electric current. Electrical faults on
transmission and distribution lines are detected and isolated by system protective devices.
Once the fault has been cleared, outage times can be reduced if the location of the fault can
be determined more quickly. A continuous and reliable electrical energy supply is the
objective of any power system operation. Nevertheless, faults do inevitably occur in power
systems. A transmission line is the part of the power system where faults are most likely to
happen. Transmission line faults must be located accurately to allow maintenance crews to
arrive at the scene and repair the faulted section as soon as possible.

An electric power system comprises of generation, transmission and distribution of

electric energy. Transmission lines are used to transmit electric power to distant large load
centres. The rapid growth of electric power systems over the past few decades has resulted in
a large increase of the number of lines in operation and their total length. These lines are
exposed to faults as a result of lightning, short circuits, faulty equipments, mis-operation,
human errors, overload, and aging.

Many electrical faults manifest in mechanical damages, which must be repaired

before returning the line to service. The restoration can be expedited if the fault location is
either known or can be estimated with a reasonable accuracy. Faults cause short to long term
power outages for customers and may lead to significant losses especially for the
manufacturing industry. Fast detecting, isolating, locating and repairing of these faults are
critical in maintaining a reliable power system operation.

1.2 LITERATURE SURVEY

Many interesting state-of-the-art reports and papers discussing the fault location
problems and methods of analysis are available.

Joe-Air Jiang Jun-Zhe Yang,Ying-Hong Lin, Chih-Wen Liu and Jih-Chen Ma [1]
proposed to use the Discrete Fourier Transform and Laplace transform based Algorithm and
also use the telegraphic equation to find out the fault location.

Robert Salat and Stanislaw Osowski, [2] proposed a new approach to the location of
fault in the high-voltage power transmission line, relying on the application of the support
vector machine and frequency characteristics of the measured one-terminal voltage and
current transient signals of the system.

1
 CHAPTER-2
TYPES OF FAULTS

2.1 Introduction to faults

There are broadly two types of faults in transmission lines – transient and permanent
faults. A transient fault is no longer present if power is disconnected for a short time and then
restored. Many faults in overhead power lines are transient in nature and power system
protection devices operate to isolate the area of the fault, clear the fault and then the power-
line can be returned to service.

Transient faults also called as temporary faults, the reason is it does not damage
insulation of the lines. Typical examples of transient faults include:

• Momentary tree, bird or animal contact

• Lightning strike

• Conductor clashes

A Permanent fault can cause lasting damage to the transmission lines. To counter a
permanent fault, the line first has to be isolated and then correction has to be made to the line.
Some examples of the fault of permanent nature are:

• Direct lightning stroke on line

• Man-made damage

• Mechanical damage due to environment and age.

2
2.2 Electrical Faults in Overhead Transmission Lines
The occurrence of faults in overhead transmission line is common thing. The faults
are also divided into two types. They are

 Symmetrical faults
 Unsymmetrical faults

 Symmetrical faults

In Symmetrical faults, when fault occurs in system, same fault current flows in all
phases or three phase. In transmission line faults, 5% are symmetrical faults. The symmetrical
faults are divided as follows.

 All the Three Phase Short Circuited (L-L-L):

This may occur when all line conductors are short circuited due to failure of
insulation. With effect of conductor clashes and any physical contact to the three phases it
will be occurred and it is shown in below figure

Fig2.1 :LLL faults

3
  All Three Phases to Earth (L-L-L-G)
This may occur when insulators of all the three line conductors short circuited and fall into
earth.

Fig 2.2 LLLG faults

 Unsymmetrical Faults or Asymmetrical faults

In case of unsymmetrical faults, different current flows in different phase when
fault occurs. 95% faults are unsymmetrical or Asymmetrical type. These faults are
divided as follows.

 Single Line to Ground (L-G):

This may occur when insulation of one of the line conductor breaks and falls on the
earth or ground wire. Any momentary of physical contact, through the any line to ground LG
faults are occurred and it is shown in below figure

Fig2.3:LG Faults

4
  Phase to Phase (L-L):
This may occur when one of the line conductors breaks and falls on the other
line conductor. With effect of air or physical contact between the any two lines this
faults are occurred and it is shown in below figure

Fig: 2.4 LL Faults

 Phase to Phase and Third Phase to Earth (L-L-G):
This may occur when two line conductors are short circuited and third line
conductor breaks and falls on the ground or ground wire.

Fig: 2.5 LLG Faults

5
 CHAPTER -3

FAULT LOCATION TECHNIQUES

3.1 Introduction to fault location techniques:

Traditional line fault detection used to heavily rely on visual inspections of the faulted line
parts resulting in long and tedious foot or aerial patrols. These methods were expensive and
prone to more errors. Thus, the shift to automatic fault locators was not only desired, but also
natural.

Fault location techniques can be generally classified into the following main
categories:

 Based on fundamental-frequency currents and voltages, mainly on impedance

measurement
 Based on travelling-wave phenomenon
 Knowledge-based approaches
 Based on high-frequency components of currents and voltages generated by faults.

The most widely used FLAs can be split into two main groups: impedance based and
travelling-wave based. Impedance-based algorithms make use of the line parameters (such as
resistance, inductance and conductance per unit length, and the line length) as well as voltage
and current data from one or more line terminals to calculate the distance to the fault from a
reference point or line terminal. Travelling-wave based algorithms utilize the theory that
waves travel along a line from a fault at the speed of light to calculate the distance to a fault
from a reference point and timing wave reaching the line terminal.

6
1. Impedance based algorithm

Impedance-based FLAs calculate fault distance using the per unit length
impedance of the line, voltage and current data, and circuit analysis techniques, such as
Kirchhoff’s voltage and current laws. Single-terminal and two-terminal algorithms are the
two main groups of impedance based FLAs. Single-terminal FLA (STFLA), often cited as
the first and earliest class of FLA use voltage and current data from one end of the
transmission line only. They determine the fault distance by calculating the impedance of
the transmission line as seen from one line terminal and then using the line parameters to
convert that value into a distance measurement. To implement this, a microprocessor
based relay or other measuring device can be used to measure the voltages and currents at
the local line terminal and then produce an estimate of the fault distance based on those
measurements. The main advantage of using STFLA is that no communication of data is
needed between line terminals. They are simpler to construct and the results require less
computations making them fast.

Two-terminal FLAs (TTFLA) tend to be more accurate since they are unaffected
by the resistance of the fault or other factors that reduce the precision of STFLAs as
shown in [2],[3] and [4]. The positive-sequence components can be used as opposed to
zero-sequence components, which is advantageous as zero-sequence components can be
harder to assess. TTFLA utilize similar methods from STFLA. Some disadvantages of
using TTFLAs are as listed below:

 Require a means of gathering the data from line terminals at two locations
before it can be analyzed.
 Takes longer to locate the fault due to their complexity
 Implementation requires more measuring devices, communication
channels and data storage devices

Impedance based fault location algorithms, unfortunately require very accurate line
parameters and sequence impedance data. Line parameters also tend to vary with fault
conditions and this tends to distort the accuracy of this particular implementation.

7
2.Travelling Wave Based Fault Location Algorithm

Travelling-waves occur after faults, switching, or lightning strikes. When a

fault occurs along a transmission line, the voltage and current transients will travel towards
the line terminals. By wave reflection theory, these transients will continue to bounce back
and forth between the fault point and the two terminals for the faulted line until the post fault
steady state is reached. Since the travelling-waves move along the transmission line at the
speed of light, by accurately measuring the time taken for the travelling-wave to propagate to
the line terminals, the distance to the fault can be effectively found. An advantage of this
method over impedance-based techniques is persistence to pre-fault line loading, fault and
grounding resistance. Disadvantage of Travelling-wave Fault Location Algorithms(TWFLAs)
is that they cannot be used on transmission corridors consisting of overhead lines and
underground cables as the surge impedance changes drastically between them, resulting in
large inaccuracies in the location of the fault.

The accuracy of TWFLAs can be affected by errors in detection of the waves.

Strong buses on the power system network influencing the voltage and current waveforms
due to line impedances can reduce the amplitude of voltage waves making them harder to
detect, and thus reducing the accuracy of the FLA. Single ended TWFLA use wave sensors at
one line terminal as it does not require any form of communication between the line
terminals, whereas two-ended TWFLAs work by recording the exact time that the transient
travelling wave from the fault reaches each line terminal where accurate timing is usually
achieved by using a GPS system.

Two-ended TWFLAs are known to be more accurate than their single-terminal

counterparts and do not require as much signal processing at the sensors since they do not
have to correlate the reflected waves to their original waves as they work by simple timing.
However, two-ended TWFLAs are more expensive than single-ended TWFLAs because of
their requirement for a communications link and synchronization between the two line
terminals. This communications link and its inherent problems also make two-ended
TWFLAs less reliable and less robust than single-ended TWFLAs. A high sampling time for
computations and expensive implementations add to the overall demerits of using TWFLAs.

8
3.Knowledge Based Algorithm

Instead of the normal mathematical derivation, non-conventional fault location

algorithms were introduced depending on other processing platforms such as Wavelet
Transform (WT), ANN or GA. These methods have their own problems that result from the
line modeling accuracy, data availability and the method essences. ANN provides a
promising tool for classification and non-linear mapping problems. For power system
purposes, many successful applications have been proposed for different purposes such as
load forecasting, security assessment, control ...etc. This is well covered in the published
literatures. For protection purposes, different applications were developed covering a wide
range of protection purposes such as faulted area estimation, fault direction discrimination,
generator protection, transformer protection ...etc. However, almost all of these applications
mainly use the ANN as a simple discriminator having only the outputs of 1 or 0 using voltage
and current samples directly. This simple topological use of ANN may reach the aimed
accuracy with the proper training.

However, employing ANN for fault location purposes requires the ANN to perform
more advanced calculations in order to predict the fault impedance seen from the locator
location. The training sets should be prepared properly covering all situations that can happen
in the real situations. Thus, the ANN efficiency essentially depends on the properly selected
network design as well as the sufficient amounts of training data. WT provides an advanced
tool for signal analysis purposes. Unlike the conventional signal processing tools such as
Fourier analysis, the wavelets are not only localized in frequency domain but also in time
domain as well. This localization enables to detect the occurrence times of even fast
disturbances such as fault transients.

These transients are generated by the fault and travel continuously between the fault
point and the line terminals until the post fault steady state is reached. Thus, processing these
signals with WT reveals their travel times between the fault point and the locator position.
The fault location problems can be interpreted as an optimization problem, in which the seen
impedance from the relay location can be described as the objective function of this problem.
Then, it can be mathematically optimized in order to find out the function unknowns
including the fault distance as well as the fault resistance. In spite of the accepted
performance of these non-conventional applications with simulation testing, their reliability
and dependability are still questionable. Therefore, almost none of these proposed

9
applications are commercially developed till present. However, the wide capabilities of these
modern tools may motivate to improve the employment of these tools so that they will fit the
practical requirements for real usage.

4.High Frequency Component Based Fault Location Algorithm

High-frequency transient signals generated in the range of Hz to kHz due to fault

conditions can be applied to achieve high accuracy in fault location as shown in the work
established in. This method of fault location detection, based on the high frequency voltage
and current components, has been shown to be immune to power frequency phenomena such
as power swings and current transformer saturations. This method mainly uses the fault-
generated high-frequency signals, negating the problem of identifying multiple reflections of
the travelling wave from bus-bars and the fault point, as is seen in the travelling wave based
FLAs. Problems associated with fault-inception angle are addressed as the high-frequency
signals associated with the fault arc do not vary with the point on the wave at which the fault
occurs.

A high speed sampling system is used to capture the fault-generated high-frequency

transients. The high frequency components are used to identify the path of the fault (line or
ground) and then compute the fault location along the identified path based on the power-
frequency signals. The multi-phase transient signals are first decomposed into modal
components. Then, the modal signals are decomposed into their wavelet components and the
corresponding wavelet coefficients are obtained.

These wavelet coefficients are used to extract the relevant signal features, which are
subsequently used to identify the branch or path where the fault is located. Finally, the fault
distance from the main substation is calculated using the information provided by the power-
frequency signal. This technique for fault location detection is not widely used as the method
is considered expensive and complex, since use of specially tuned filters for measuring high-
frequency components is required.

10
 CHAPTER 4

A NOVEL ALGORITHM FOR FAULT LOCATION

4.1 The Proposed Method

In this algorithm the L/R ratio of the transmission line is assumed to be known. For the
homogeneous transmission lines the per kilometre resistance and inductance is known which can be
related by the time constant of the line. The inductance to resistance ratio of the transmission line thus
constant throughout the line, as the ratio is independent of length of the transmission line. A Single
phase transmission line is taken as in Figure 4-1and modeled as a lumped pi section line as shown in
Figure 4.2

Figure 4.1 Test system

Where VR - Voltage at relay location

IR - Current at relay location

RS - Source resistance

LS - Source inductance

l - Total length of the transmission line

p - Distance to fault point from bus m

11
Consider shunt fault is occurred at point A, Rf is the fault resistance.

Figure 4.2 Single PI circuit transmission line model post fault

Since the fault resistance (Rf) is assumed to be small the far end capacitance is neglected.
L
x
R (4.1)

L, R is the inductance and resistance of a segment of line.From Figure 4.2 current,

IR(t) can be written as follows

IR(t )  Ic(t )  IL(t ) (4.2)

(4.3)

The current 𝐼𝑐 is the capacitive current flowing through the lumped equivalent
capacitance at the relay location, and it is related to the voltage at the relaying point by equation
(4.3)

(4.4)

12
From equation (4.2 )

(4.5)

Using equations (4.4 ) and (4.5 ), equation (4.3 ) thus takes the second order form:

(4.6)

It can be written as

(4.7)

Where the coefficients A1 and A2 are given by

A1=

(4.8)

To determine R and C from equation (4.6 ) it is necessary to use at least two sets of
voltage and current samples.

Let us assume that at time t=tk we have vR= vR(k) and I = IR(k) that are the output of anti-
aliasing filter. Also, using central differences, the current and voltage derivatives can be
determined from the measured samples, it is given as below

13
 (4.9)

Where Δ. the sampling interval, k - kth sampling instant.

After the fault occurs, using the digital information at two sampling points, two
equations corresponding to equation (4.7 ) are formed. Solving the equation set consisting
of two equations, we can get the impedance parameters (R, L, C), hence the fault location.

The two equations can be written in matrix form as

=
(4.10)

In short form it can be written as

AX=B

Where

A=

X=

B=

14
 The vector X is readily evaluated by forming the matrices A and B from sampled values.
Again this process can be repeated after each sample set become available, thus producing a
succession of estimates of capacitance, resistance and inductance between relaying and fault
points. Therefore by solving two sets of equations all the parameters of the line (R, L & C) are
evaluated.

15
 CHAPTER-5

SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

5.1 Introduction

With the help of differential equation algorithm I wrote a mat lab program
.First I take sampling frequency is 200000 and system frequency is 50 Hz. Sampling time is
equal to 1/sampling frequency and it 10 ms. I assume voltage, current, resistance,
inductance,capacitance and length of the line. I assume line length is 150 km.

Sampling voltage(Vs) is Vmax sin(2πft) and sampling current is Imax sin(2πft-phase

angle between the voltage and current).With the help of ‘while’ command to get the up to
maximum values. I took maximum value is 1000.

Impedance is (R+jwL+1/jwC) multiply by total length of the line and they have real
and imaginary terms.

I assume mat lab program commands are :

 IR(t)=IC(t)+IL(t), it is current at which located to fault reactor

 VR(t)=R IL(t) + L d IL(t)/dt, it is voltage at which located to fault reactor
 VR, it is voltage
 A1, co efficient
 A2, co efficient
 VR(k+1), it is Sampling voltage at time instant k+1
 IR(k+1), it is Sampling current at time instant k+1
 X(k)=2πfL, reactance of the line
 C(k)=1/2ΠfC, capacitance of the line

16
 With the help of this equation we can easily measure the fault point, at sending
end to fault locate point.

AX=B

To solve this equations we can easily measure the R,LC parameters and fault location point

5.2 Procedure to run the program:

1. Open the Mat lab software.

2. To select the new script and type the total program.

3. Run the program and we get output wave forms

17
5.3 MATLAB Program for Fault location for Medium Transmission Lines

clc
clear all;
close all;
fs=200000; f=50; % Sampling and system frequency
ts=1/fs; % Sampling time
dt=0:ts:1;
vmax=400e3; % Peak voltage
R=0.0296;
L=1.044e-3;
C=12e-9;
di=150; % length of the line
z=(R+2*f*pi*L*1i+1/2*f*pi*C*1i)*di;
zr=real(z); zi=imag(z); % Impedance, Resistance,Reactance & Capacitance
vs=vmax*sin(2*f*pi*dt);
imax=vmax/(abs(z)); ph=angle(z);
is=imax*sin(2*f*pi*dt-ph);
A1=(IR+x*d*IR/dt);
A2=-(d*VR/dt+X*d sqrt*VR/dt sqrt);
VR=A1*R+A2*RC;
IR(t)=IC(t)+IL(t);
VR(t)=R*IL(t)+L*d IL(t)/dt;

k=3;
while k<=1000
t=t(k);I=IR(k);VR=VR(k);
d*IR(k)/dt=IR(k+1)-IR(k-1)/2*ts;
d*VR(k)/dt=VR(k+1)-VR(k-1)/2*ts;
d sqrt*VR(k)/dt=VR(k+1)+VR(k-1)-2*VR(k)/ts;
k=k+1;
end

18
 CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

By using Impedance based Algorithm like one terminal data end

method, I wrote a program in mat lab software, measured the where fault is
occurred .To solve both equations we get R,L,C parameters .I implement the
program only for medium transmission lines.

FUTURE WORK:
As a consequence of the investigations carried out in this project, the
following aspects are identified for future research work in this area:
 New scheme making use of transient travelling waves generated by
fault to realize the fault location on the distribution network mixed
with overhead lines and cables.
 A fault location (FL) method using composite fiber-optic overhead
ground wires (OPGWs)

19
 REFERENCES
1) A.T.Johns, S.Jamali "Accurate Fault Location For Power Transmission Lines" IEE
Proceedings C -Generation,Transmission and Distribution ( Volume:137, Issue:6, Nov 1990 )

2. T. Takagi, Y. Yamakoshi, J. Baba, K. Uemura, T. Sakaguchi, "A New Alogrithm of an

Accurate Fault Location for EHV/UHV Transmission Lines: Part I- Fourier Transformation
Method", IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, vol. PAS-100, no. 3, pp.
1316-1323, March 1981.
3.M. Kezunović (Kezunovic), J. Mrkić (Mrkic), B. Perunicić (Perunicic), "An Accurate Fault
Location Algorithm Using Synchronized Sampling", Electric Power Systems Research, vol.
29, pp. 161-169, 1994.

20