Lecture-7

Symmetrical Fault Analysis

Lecture Summary
1. Introduction
2. Cause and Consequences
3. Types of Faults
4. Symmetrical Short Circuit Analysis
Instructional Objective
On completion of this lecture you (student) should be able to:
A. Explain the significance of short circuit
B. Explain the causes and consequences of short circuit
C. Compute currents for symmetrical faults

Introduction
The symmetrical faults are not very common in power system. But, they do
occur and one of the major consequences of short circuit is very heavy currents,
because short circuit reduces the impedance of the system. Considerably,
thereby increasing the current flowing through the components and the
consequences of these heavy currents on the system is very disastrous, if they
are allowed to stay for longer time.
Therefore, the short circuit is needed to be isolated as quickly as possible
from the system. This is done by means of protection systems and the switch
gears in 3-5 cycles.

Causes of Short circuit

 Insulation failure , due to over voltages caused by lightning or switching
surges
 Insulation contamination due to salt spray, pollution.
 Mechanical causes such as Over-heating, abrasion.
Faults on Transmission Lines
These are the most common faults because transmission lines are mostly
overhead lines and exposed to elements of nature (60-70%):
 Lightning Stroke: Over voltage due to lightning cause insulators to
flash over and hence line to ground or line to line short circuit
occurs.
 High wind topples tower, tree falls on line to create faults.
 Wind and ice loading cause mechanical failure of insulator and line
falls on ground.
 Fog, salt spray or dirt on insulator create conducting path on
surface of insulator cause insulation failure.
Short circuit in other elements
The much less common faults occur, occur, because of over loading for
extended periods, in:
 Underground cables (10-15%),
 Circuit breakers (10-12%),
(10
 Generators,, motors, transformers etc. (10-15%)
The faults occur due to deterioration of insulation or due to mechanical failure.
Consequences of Short Circuit
 Heavy current, several magnitudes larger than normal operating current,
flows through circuit.
 Thermal damage to equipment
 Mechanical damage to winding and bus bars due to high magnetic force
caused by high current.

Short Circuit on unloaded machine

Current include dc and ac components as shown as follows:

3-phase
phase short circuit on synchronous machine for unloaded machine
Reactance of different state (sub transient, transient and steady state) is as
follows:

AC and DC current expressed as follows:

From Current envelop,, sub transient, transient and steady state currents are
expressed as follws:

Short circuit on loaded machine

For synchronous motor, the equations are as follows:

 Solution
P.U. representation of circuit
Short circuit calculations using Theveninn’s Theorem
Assignment-4 (Submission Date: 26-02-2019)
1. A 60- cycle alternating voltage having a rms value of 100 volts is applied to a

2. A 625-kV, generator with X”d =0.08 per unit is connected to a bus

through a circuit breaker as shown in Fig. 1, Connected through circuit breakers

Current. Fig. 1

For breaker A and B.

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