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A PAPER PRESENTATION ON

OP-AMP BASED STATIC OVER CURRENT RELAY

[RECENT TRENDS IN POWER SYSTEM PROTECTION]

Document By
SANTOSH BHARADWAJ REDDY
Email: help@matlabcodes.com
Engineeringpapers.blogspot.com
More Papers and Presentations available on above site

OP-AMP BASED STATIC OVER CURRENT RELAY
Abstract: Protection of power systems against faults,
which may damage or lead to damage of the power
systems, is of more importance. Since it is not possible to
prevent the abnormalities such as overloads, switching,
arcing ground faults, protective devices are employed to
detect and isolate the faulty section. To protect the power
system against uneven conditions, relays are used to sense
the abnormality occurring in the system from time to time
the conventional electromagnetic relays are robust and
quite reliable, but are required to work under differential
forces under fault conditions. This leads to delicate setting
of small contact gaps, special bearing systems, special
clutch assemblies and several manufacturing difficulties.
Static relays are now replacing the conventional
electromagnetic relays. These relays are capable of
performing electronic circuit control functions in a
manner, which is similar to that of an electromagnetic
relay without the use of moving parts of an element. This
paper emphasis more on over current relay
Index Terms—Comparator, OP.AMP, double contactor
Zenar regulator.
I. INTRODUCTION
To generate electric power and transmit it to customers,
many power system equipment’s must be used which are
very cost. These equipment’s are designed to work under
specified normal conditions[Ref:6] During the operation of
the power system the generating plants, transmission lines,
distribution lines & other electrical equipment’s are
required to be switched ON & OFF under both normal &
abnormal conditions. However a short circuit may occur
due to failure of insulation caused by 1.Over voltages due
to switching. 2. over voltages due to direct and indirect
lighting stoke.3.Bridging of conductors by birds. These
short circuit currents may cause heavy damage to
equipment. In modern power systems to minimize
damage to equipment two alternatives are open to the
designer.1) to design the system so that the faults cannot
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occur.2) to accept the possibility of faults & take steps to
guard against the effect of these faults. It is not possible to
design the system with out any faults. Therefore the
protection is needed to isolate the system from the
abnormal conditions. Protective relays are the devices that
detect abnormal conditions in electrical circuits by
constantly measuring the electrical quantities which are
different under normal & abnormal conditions. Detecting
the fault using relays will complete the trip circuit which
results in the opening of the circuit-breaker & in the
disconnection of the faulty circuit.
The relay ensures the safety of the circuit equipment from
any damage which might be other wise caused by the
fault.
Protective Relay
An electrical device designed to initiate isolation of an
electrical installation or to operate and alarm signal in the
event of an abnormal condition or a fault is known as
protective relay. The important properties of any static
relay are speed, selectivity sensitivity, simplicity,
reliability and economy. [Ref: 2]
STATIC RELAYS
The term Static relays generally referred to a relay
incorporating solid state devices like comparators
transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors etc. In this type of
relay the functions of comparison and measurements are
performed by static circuits where in there are no moving
parts. Advantages of Static relay over dynamic relay in
general, passes the following advantages.
Absence of mechanical inertia and bouncing contacts, high
resistance to shock and vibration the operating power is in
many cases from an auxiliary power supply and Very fast
operation and long life. quick reset action and absence of
overshoot. Ease of providing amplification enables greater
Sensitivity and Unconventional characteristics are possible
etc.

Static relays with solid state components have certain
limitations but these can be overcome as indicated in each
case. Temperature sensitivity-temperature compensation
of circuits has been developed. Ageing-this is eliminated
by pre-soaking of components for several hours at a
relatively high temperature. Sensitivity to voltage spikes-
this can be eliminated by filters and shielding.
BLOCK DIAGRAM OF STATIC RELAY
Basically, protective relays are analogue-binary signal
converters with measuring functions. The variables such as
current, voltage, phase angle or frequency and derived
values obtained by differentiation, integration or other
arithmetic operations appear always as analogue signals at
the input of the measuring unit. The output will always
have a binary signal i.e either an open signal if the relay is
not to trip or a close signal if the relay is not to trip or a
close signal if the relay is to trip.This output signal can
therefore be easily evaluated by subsequent control
elements requiring very little technical efforts. Each
Protective relay is built up of individual elements in
accordance with the block diagram. The signals, which
occur in analogue and therefore in the continuously
variable form from the measuring circuit (CT OR PT), are
first, fed to the converter unit in the protective relay. This
converts the measured signals so that they can be easily
processed by the measuring element, which follows. This
measuring element will be appeared when the input signal
reaches a certain value providing a close signal at its
output, the output amplifies this binary but weak signal
and transfers it to one or more controlled elements. The
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controlled elements carry out the final switching functions
as opening of circuit breaker etc. power is supplied to the
measuring or output element by a feed element. This
power is obtained either from an auxiliary voltage source
or from the measuring circuit itself.[Ref:1]
COMPARATOR
A Comparator as its name implies compares a signal
voltage on one input of an op-amp with a known voltage
called the reference voltage on the other input. In this
simplest form it is nothing more than an open loop op-amp
with two analog input and a digital output, the output may
be +ve or –ve saturation voltage depending on which input
is larger.
Fig shows an op-amp used as a non inverting comparator.
A fixed reference voltage Vref is applied to the (-ve) input
and the other time varying signal voltage Vin is applied to
the (+ve) input. Because of this arrangement the circuits is
called the non-inverting comparator. When Vin is less than
Vref the output voltage Vo is at -Vsat
because the voltage at (-ve) input is higher than at the
(+ve) input. On the other hand when Vin is greater than
Vref the (+ve) input becomes positive w.r.t (-ve) input
and Vo goes to +Vsat thus Vo changes from one
Saturation level to another whenever Vin = Vref, as shown
in fig in short the comparator is a type of analog to digital
converter. At any given time the – waveform shows
whether V is greater or less than Vref.
ZENAR DIODE
or reference voltage it is desired that the output voltage
should remain constant regardless of the variations in the

input voltage or load. In order to ensure this a voltage-
stabilizing device called voltage stabilizer is used. For this
Zenar diode is used.[Ref:5]
BLOCK DIAGRAMOF STATIC
OVECURRENT RELAY
Current Transformers are used to reduce the currents to
measurable values. Comparators compare voltage
quantities but nor currents. So I to V converter is required.
That function is served by using a rheostat connected in
series to secondary winding of current transformer. The
converted voltage is stepped down into measurable values
by using a step down transformer So that all electronic
components can function with out any damage. The
voltage stepped down is rectified by using bridge rectifier.
Zenar regulator is used as reference for a comparator.
Comparator compares the rectified signal with reference
signal and gives output signal accordingly.
CONTACTOR
It is basically an electromagnetic switch containing a coil
which magnetizes the iron core and attracts an armature as
a result of which normally open contacts become closed
and closed contacts become open.NO – Normally open
contacts
NC - Normally closed contacts
The contactor used is a type 12V/200 Ω i.e the coil has a
resistance of 200 Ω and operates at 12V. It has a pick up
value and a reset value. The contactor coil can keep
plunger in attracted position with 5V and it has pick up
value of 9V. The relay gives satisfactory performance i.e it
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has a smaller close time and good attraction of armature at
12V i.e at rated value.
The contactors are basically used for operation under
normal conditions and overload conditions. Contactors are
capable of making and breaking short circuit currents i.e
they are designed for short circuit duties also contactors
are usually intended to operate more frequently. During
the mechanical endurance test contactors are operated
0.001 to 10 million times on no load to verify their
resistance to mechanical wear. Contactors have a main
circuit and a control circuit. The contactors are designed
according to the method of energizing the control circuit
namely Electromagnetic, Pneumatic and Electro
pneumatic. Here Electro magnetic contactor is
used
The following circuit diagram shows protection against
over current of 2.1A.It can be used for protection of over
currents up to 10A. [Ref: 3]
The primary of the CT is connected in series with the load
and the secondary of CT is connected in series with
standard resistance. The voltage is tapped in proportion to
secondary current of CT and is rectified by using bridge
rectifier and filter with capacitor. Hence the output DC
voltage obtained now is proportional to primary load
current. Reference voltage is connected to the –Ve input
terminal of the op-amp and the sensing voltage to the +Ve
input terminal. The potential divider is adjusted such that
at the pick up value the sensing voltage is equal to
reference voltage. Under normal operating conditions i.e
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below the pick up value the sensing voltage is less than

reference voltage and output of op-amp is -Vsat.
When the overload is sensed by the sensor it will activate
the relay to break the circuit. When the overload activates
the relay 12V is applied to relay and it is turned ON. At
the same instant the relay coil voltage drops to 5V due to
above condition. But relay is not turned OFF when we
interrupt the relay through reset switch. The relay comes
to OFF condition and will not turn on unless overload
exists once again after reset switch is activated. The
current selected for the operation of the relay is 2.1A.The
Zenar selected for this protection is 8.5 V [Ref: 4]
RESULTS
The following table shows the results of over current relay.
The above graph shows the variation of results with real
circuit and simulated circuit.
protect 3 HP motors against over loads. In similar way all
the above protection can be provided for any voltage and
current rating by selecting potential and current
transformers. As an extension of this paper the protective
scheme can be designed to protect the power system for
unbalance loads and earth faults. For unloaded load
protection the current in all phases are measured and
current in two phases are compared at a time with the help
of microprocessor if the difference in any two phases is
more than the pre required value say 1 to 2% the output
part of the microprocessor sends a signal to trip the load to
protect against unbalancing. For protection against earth
faults the current from neutral to ground is used to protect
against earth fault.

HARD WARE

The total cost of the equipment used is 600Rs.

Data of the static over current Realy

CONCLUSIONS
The protective scheme can be adapted to any type of
230/9 Step down Transformer
system like machines, power lines etc. The protective
IN4007 Doides
system can be directly incorporated for the 1-phase
1000µ F/50V Capacitor
system. The system can be protected from under voltages,
33K, 100K, 100ohms resistors
over voltages and also over currents. In this paper the 1-
µA741 OP-Amp
phase static relay is designed to operate on when the
12V double contactor
current is above 2.1A to achieve over current voltage
protection. Static over load protection is designed to
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REFERENCES
1. Power system protection static relays by
T.S Madhavarao
2. Electrical power systems by C.L.Wadhwa
3. Switch Gear Protection- by Sunil s. Rao
4. Power System Protection and Switch gear
By B.Ravindranath and M.Chander
5. Linear Device Integrated Circuits by
Roy Chowdary
6. A Text Book on Power system engineering by
Sony Gupta Bhatnagar

Document By
SANTOSH BHARADWAJ REDDY
Email: help@matlabcodes.com
Engineeringpapers.blogspot.com
More Papers and Presentations
available on above site