EEET 421 lab 3

Name and No. Section :

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Calculation of symmetrical fault current in a power system by calculation and using MATLAB PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE Upon completion of this laboratory exercise, the student can use MATLAB program to solve the symmetrical fault calculation problems.

3. The reactance data for the power system is shown in figure in per unit on a common base as shown below.
Item G1 G2 T1 T2 Line 1-2 X1 0.10 0.10 0.25 0.25 0.30 X2 0.10 0.10 0.25 0.25 0.30 X0 0.05 0.05 0.25 0.25 0.50

Calculate the fault current if a symmetrical fault occurs at bus 1.

EEET 421 lab 3

Theory: Short circuits and other abnormal conditions often occur on a power system. Short circuits are usually called faults by power system engineers. Some defects, other than short circuits are also termed as faults. Faults are caused either by insulation failures or by conducting path failures. The failure of insulation results in short circuits which are very harmful as they may damage some equipment of the power system. Most of the faults in transmission and distribution lines are caused by over voltages due to lightning or switching surges, or by external conducting objects falling on overhead lines. Overvoltages due to lightning or switching surges cause flashover on the surface of insulators resulting in short circuits. Short circuits are also caused by tree branches or other conducting objects falling on the overhead lines. The fault impedance being low, the fault currents are relatively high. The fault currents being excessive, they damage the faulty equipment and the supply installation. Also, the system voltage may reduce to a low level, windings and busbars may suffer mechanical damage due to high magnetic forces during faults and the individual generators in a power station or group of generators in different power stations may loose synchronism The symmetrical fault occurs when all the three conductors of a three-phase line are brought together simultaneously into a shortcircuit condition as shown in Figure 1.

This type of fault gives rise to symmetrical currents i.e. equal fault currents with 1200

EEET 421 lab 3

displacement. Thus referring to Figure 1, fault currents IA, IB and IC will be equal in magnitude with 1200 displacement among them. Because of balanced nature of fault, only one phase needs to be considered in calculations since condition in the other two phases will also be similar. A three-phase short circuit occurs rarely but it is most severe type of fault involving largest currents. For this reason, the balanced short-circuit calculations are performed to determine these large currents to be used to determine the rating of the circuit breakers.

EEET 421 lab 3

EEET 421 lab 3

EEET 421 lab 3 Matlab Program

zdata1 = [0 1 0 0.35 0 2 0 0.35 1 2 0 0.3];

Zbus1 = zbuild(zdata1);

disp('(a) Symmetrical three-phase fault') symfault(zdata1, Zbus1)

Review Questions1. What is a fault in power system? 2. What are the effects of fault? 3. What is meant by symmetrical and unsymmetrical fault? 4. Why fault calculation is necessary? 5. Change the fault location to bus number 4 and solve the problem again. What is the new fault current?