EasyPower - Short Circuit Analysis

In this tutorial, you will be shown how to use several of EasyPowers short circuit analysis features.

Short Circuit Focus

To run short circuit analysis, you must be in the Short Circuit focus. Open the file simple.dez in your SAMPLES directory. Enter Short Circuit focus by choosing the button on the toolbar. A new toolbar will appear. This new toolbar contains buttons that can be used in your short circuit calculations.

Calculating Fault Currents

Double-click on BUS-3. The bus should turn light blue and display fault currents in symmetrical kilo-amps. As shown in Figure 1, the motor contributes 0.863kA and the cable 4.481kA to the fault. The total bus fault current, shown at a forty-five degree angle, is 5.344kA.

Figure 1: Momentary Short Circuit Fault

There are several different methods to fault buses while in Short Circuit focus: 1) Double-click on a bus. 2) Select a bus or multiple buses (so they turn green) and press the button. (Note: To select a single bus, click on it with the left mouse button. To select extra buses, click on them while holding down the Shift key.) 3) Press the
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button. This runs a batch fault on all the buses in your system.

Remote Voltages and Currents

Fault BUS-3 again. Select BUS-1 (by clicking on it). With the Shift key pressed, also select BUS-2. Click on the button. The remote currents are 0.896kA on the primary side of the transformer and 4.481kA on the secondary side (as shown in Figure 1). The remote voltages, shown at a fortyfive degree angle, are 0.643pu on BUS-1 and 0.000pu on BUS-2.

Changing the ANSI Standard Time Interval

ANSI Standards list three distinct time intervals for short circuit currents. These are momentary (1/2 cycle), interrupting (5 cycle), and 30 cycle. By default, EasyPower displays the momentary currents, as indicated by the pressed button in the toolbar. (See Figure 1.) Click on the button to view the interrupting results. The one-line currents will change, as shown in Figure 2a. The overall bus current magnitude drops to 4.826kA due to the decay of the motor contribution.

Figure 2: a) Interrupting Currents and b) 30 Cycle Currents

Click on the button to view the 30 cycle currents. (See Figure 2b.) Notice that the motor current contribution decays to zero leaving only 4.481kA from the utility.

Unsymmetrical Faults
The currents calculated to this point have been 3-phase currents. Unsymmetrical faults are also calculated by EasyPower. According to convention, single line-to-ground fault calculations assume the A-phase is faulted. For double line-to-ground and line-to-line faults, convention says that phases B and C are faulted. Refer to Elements of Power System Analysis by William D. Stevenson, Jr. for examples of unsymmetrical fault calculations. Single Line-to-Ground Faults Press the toolbar button. When this button is pressed, all subsequent faults will be single line-toground faults.

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Click on the

button

Fault BUS-3 again. The currents will show zero. (See Figure 3a.) This is because the transformer (delta-delta connection type) and motor are not grounded. (By default, EasyPower displays A-phase currents.)

Double Line-to-Ground Faults Press the toolbar button.

A message will appear. Answer Yes to fault the B-phase line rather than the A-phase. All faults will now be double line-to-ground faults. Double-click on BUS-3 again. The B-phase double line-to-ground fault currents will be displayed. (See Figure 3b.)

Line-to-Line Faults Press the toolbar button. Faults will be now be line-to-line faults.

Fault BUS-3 again to display the B-phase line-to-line fault currents. (See Figure 3c.)

Figure 3: a) Single Line-to-Ground, b) Double Line-to-Ground, and c) Line-to-Line Faults on BUS-3.

Text Reports
Select ToolsShort Circuit Options from the menu. A dialog box will appear. Choose the Text Output tab. Check the Momentary checkbox on the upper left and then OK the dialog box. Press the toolbar button. This will return us to 3-phase fault calculations.

Press the button. A high voltage momentary text report window will be created. You can view this report either by selecting HV Momentary Report for simple from the Window menu or by double-clicking on the window icon created in the lower left corner. Your text report will look similar to that in Figure 4.

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Figure 4: Short Circuit Text Output dialog box.

You can return to the one-line by selecting simple from the Window menu.

Other Options
Select ToolsShort Circuit Options from the menu and choose the One-line Output tab.

In this dialog (shown in Figure 5) you can specify Asymmetrical fault currents to be displayed on the one-line. You can also show fault currents in Per-Unit or MVA units and remote voltages in kV units.

Figure 5: Short Circuit One-line Output Dialog Box.

Choose the Control tab.

Here you can specify other short circuit settings for your fault calculations. These changes take effect on all subsequent faults after closing this dialog box.

Conclusion
This has been a brief overview of EasyPowers short circuit program. The EasyPower - Users Manual and the EasyPower help system cover these and other short circuit features in greater depth.
Revised 11/12/98