Symmetrical Fault

The operation of a power system departs from normal after the occurrence of a fault. Faults give
rise to abnormal operating conditions – usually excessive currents and voltages at certain points
on the system – which are guarded against with various types of protective equipment.

Most of the faults on the power system lead to a short-circuit condition. When such a condition
occurs, a heavy current (called short circuit current) flows through the equipment, causing
considerable damage to the equipment and interruption of service to the consumers. There is
probably no other subject of greater importance to an electrical engineer than the question of
determination of short circuit currents under fault conditions. The choice of apparatus and the
design and arrangement of practically every equipment in the power system depends upon short-
circuit current considerations.

Fault studies form an important part of power system analysis and the problem consists of
determining bus voltage and line current during faults. The three-phase fault information is used
to select and set phase relays. Fault studies are used for proper choice of circuit breakers and
protective relaying.

Broadly speaking the faults can be classified as:

1. Shunt faults (short circuits).
2. Series faults (open conductor).

Shunt type of faults involve power conductor or conductors-to-ground or short circuit between
conductors. When circuits are controlled by fuses or any device which does not open all three
phases, one or two phases of the circuit may be opened while the other phases or phase is closed.
These are called series type of faults. These faults may also occur with one or two broken
conductors. Shunt faults are characterized by increase in current and fall in voltage and frequency
whereas series faults are characterized by increase in voltage and frequency and fall in current in
the faulted phases.

Shunt type of faults are classified as (i) Line-to-ground fault; (ii) Line-to-line fault; (iii) Double
line-to-ground fault; and (iv) 3-phase fault. Of these, the first three are the unsymmetrical faults as
the symmetry is disturbed in one or two phases. The method of symmetrical components will be
utilized to analyze the unbalancing in the system. The 3-phase fault is a balanced fault which could
also be analyzed using symmetrical components.
The series faults are classified as: (i) one open conductor, and (ii) two open conductors. These
faults also disturb the symmetry in one or two phases and are, therefore, unbalanced faults. The
method of symmetrical components can be used for analyzing such situations in the system.

Symmetrical Faults on 3-Phase System

That fault on the power system which gives rise to symmetrical fault currents (i.e. equal fault
currents in the lines with 120o displacement) is called a symmetrical fault.

Because of balanced nature of fault, only one phase need be

considered in calculations since condition in the other two phases will
also be similar. The following points may be particularly noted :

(i) The symmetrical fault rarely occurs in practice as majority of the

faults are of unsymmetrical nature. However, symmetrical fault
calculations are being discussed in this chapter to enable the reader to
understand the problems that short circuit conditions present to the
power system.
(ii) The symmetrical fault is the most severe and imposes more heavy
duty on the circuit breaker.

The magnitude of the fault currents depends on the internal impedance of the generators plus the
impedance of the intervening circuit. The reactance of generator under short circuit condition is
not constant. For the purpose of fault studies, generator behavior can be divided into three periods;

1. The subtransient period, lasting only for the

few cycles (interrupting capacity of circuit
breakers)
2. The transient period, covering relatively
longer time (say 30 cycles); (relay setting
and coordination, transient stability studies)
3. And, finally the steady state period
(thereafter)
Short Circuit Capacity

The short circuit capacity at a bus is a common measure of the strength of a bus. The short circuit-
capacity or the short-circuit MVA at bus is defined as the product of the magnitudes of the rated
bus voltage and the fault current. The short-circuit MVA is used for determining the dimension of
a bus bar, and the interrupting capacity of a circuit breaker.

The short circuit capacity or the short circuit MVA at bus k is given by
#
𝑆𝐶𝐶 = √3𝑉!" 𝐼" = !"#$
$%%

Where:
VLk – line to line voltage
Ik – symmetrical three-phase fault current
Xkk – per unit reactance to the point of fault

Current Limiting Reactors

The short circuit current is large enough to do considerable damage mechanically and thermally.
The interrupting capacities of circuit breakers to handle such current would be very large. To
reduce this high fault current, artificial reactances are sometimes connected between bus sections.
These current limiting reactors are usually consist of insulated copper strip embedded in concrete
formers. This is necessary to withstand the high mechanical forces produced by the current in the
neighboring conductors.

Location of Reactors

Short circuit current limiting reactors may be connected

• in series with each generator
• in series with each feeder and
• in bus-bars.

No definite statement can be given as to which one of the above locations is preferable; each
installation has its own particular demands which must be carefully considered before a choice of
reactor location can be made.

Generator reactors
When the reactors are connected in series with each generator, they are known as generator
reactors. In this case, the reactor may be considered as a part of leakage reactance of the generator;
hence its effect is to protect the generator in the case of any short-circuit beyond the reactors.
Disadvantages
• There is a constant voltage drop and power
loss in the reactors even during normal
operation.
• If a bus-bar or feeder fault occurs close to
the bus-bar, the voltage at the bus-bar will
be reduced to a low value, thereby causing
the generators to fall out of step.
• If a fault occurs on any feeder, the
continuity of supply to other is likely to be
affected.

Due to these disadvantages and also since modern power station generators have sufficiently large
leakage reactance to protect them against short-circuit, it is not a common practice to use separate
reactors for the generators.

Feeder reactors
When the reactors are connected in series
with each feeder, they are known as
feeder reactors. Since most of the short-
circuits occur on feeders, a large number
of reactors are used for such circuits.
Two principal advantages are claimed
for feeder reactors. Firstly, if a fault
occurs on any feeder, the voltage drop in
its reactor will not affect the bus-bars
voltage so that there is a little tendency
for the generator to lose synchronism.
Secondly, the fault on a feeder will not
affect other feeders and consequently the
effects of fault are localised.

Disadvantages
• There is a constant power loss and voltage drop in the reactors even during normal
operation.
• If a short-circuit occurs at the bus-bars, no protection is provided to the generators.
However, this is of little importance because such faults are rare and modern generators
have considerable leakage reactance to enable them to withstand short-circuit across their
terminals.
• If the number of generators is increased, the size of feeder reactors will have to be increased
to keep the short-circuit currents within the ratings of the feeder circuit breakers.
Bus-bar reactors
The above two methods of locating reactors suffer from the disadvantage that there is considerable
voltage drop and power loss in the reactors even during normal operation. This disadvantage can
be overcome by locating the reactors in the bus-bars. There are two methods for this purpose,
namely; Ring system and Tie-Bar system.

Ring system. In this system, bus-bar is

divided into sections and these sections
are connected through reactors as shown
in the Figure. Generally, one feeder is
fed from one generator only. Under
normal operating conditions, each
generator will supply its own section of
the load and very little power will be fed
by other generators. This results in low
power loss and voltage drop in the
reactors. However, the principal
advantage of the system is that if a fault
occurs on any feeder, only one generator
(to which the particular feeder is connected) mainly feeds the fault current while the current fed
from other generators is small due to the presence of reactors. Therefore, only that section of bus-
bar is affected to which the feeder is connected, the other sections being able to continue in normal
operation.

Tie-Bar system. Figure shows the tie-bar system.

Comparing the ring system with tie-bar system,
it is clear that in the tie-bar system, there are
effectively two reactors in series between sections
so that reactors must have approximately half the
reactance of those used in a comparable ring
system. Another advantage of tie-bar system is that
additional generators may be connected to the
system without requiring changes in the existing
reactors. However, this system has the
disadvantage that it requires an additional bus-bar
i.e. the tie-bar.

The faulted network can be solved conveniently by the Thevenin’s method.

Generally, for three phase fault calculation, following assumptions are made:

1. The emfs of all generators are 1 pu. This assumption simplify the problem and it means
that the voltage is at its nominal value and the system is operating at no load at the time of
fault. Since all emfs and in phase, all the generators can be replaced by a single generator
2. Charging capacitances of the transmission line are ignored
3. Shunt elements in the transformer model are neglected.
Steps on Solving Power System Fault Calculation

The following steps are performed when analyzing a power system fault calculation.
1. Draw the single line reactance diagram
2. Select an appropriate Base Voltage at some point in the system.
3. Calculate the base voltages for the remainder of the power system using line-to-line voltage
ratio relationships of transformer
4. Choose an appropriate Base Apparent Power that will be applied to the entire power system
5. Convert all ohmic impedances to per unit impedances based on the selected voltage and
apparent power bases.
6. Convert all per unit impedance based on the new voltage and apparent bases selected for
the system.
7. Perform all calculations in per unit using the usual circuit analysis techniques, like mesh,
nodal, thevenins, source transformation, etc.
8. Convert the calculated per unit values to actual values if so required

Sample Problems
1. A synchronous generator and a synchronous motor each rated 20 MVA, 12.66 kV having
15% subtransient reactance are connected through transformers and a line as shown in the
figure. The transformers are rated 20 MVA, 12.66/66 kV and 66/12.66 kV with leakage
reactance of 10% each. The line has a reactance of 8% on a base of 20 MVA, 66 kV. The
motor is drawing 10 MW at 0.80 leading power factor and a terminal voltage 11 kV when
a symmetrical three-phase fault occurs at the motor terminals. Determine the generator and
motor currents. Also determine the fault current.

2. The one-line diagram of a simple three-bus power system is shown in the Figure below.
Each generator is represented by an emf behind the transient reactance. All impedances are
expressed in per unit on a common 100 MVA base. Determine the fault current, the bus
voltages, and the line currents during the fault when a balanced three-phase fault with a
fault impedance Zf = 0.16 per unit occurs on
a) bus 3
 b) bus 2
c) bus 1

3. The estimated short circuit MVA at the bus bars at generating station-1 is 900 MVA and
at another generating station-2 of 600 MVA. Generator voltage at each station is 11.2 kV.
Compute for the fault MVA at each station before and after a reactor is inserted between
the stations with a reactance 1 ohm per phase .

Supplementary Problems

1. A 3-phase transmission line operating at 10 kV and having a resistance of 1Ω and reactance

of 4 Ω is connected to the generating station bus-bars through 5 MVA step-up transformer
having a reactance of 5%. The bus-bars are supplied by a 10 MVA alternator having 10%
reactance. Calculate the short-circuit current fed to symmetrical fault between phases if it
occurs
(i) at the load end of transmission line
(ii) at the high voltage terminals of the transformer
2. The section bus-bars A and B are linked by a bus-bar reactor rated at 5000 kVA with 10%
reactance. On bus-bar A, there are two generators each of 10,000 kVA with 10% reactance
and on B two generators each of 8000 kVA with 12% reactance. Find the steady MVA fed
into a dead short circuit between all phases on B with bus-bar reactor in the circuit.

3. Determine the short circuit current and MVA when a 3-phase short circuit occurs in the
bus 4 of the 4-bus power system. Assume 1.0 pu pre-fault voltages and no-load currents.