Short circuit, overcurrent and overload protection of electrical device

All electrical equipments have their rated power. It is called overload when

they surpass the rated power, and protection to the status is called

overload protection. Protection to prevent internal short circuit of electrical

equipment is called short circuit protection and zero-pressure is also

called no-voltage protection. When there is power failure, circuit with the

functions mentioned above will stop automatically and electric equipment

will not start automatically when power is supplied next time. the purpose

of the function is to prevent operating personnel forget cut off power

source when there is power failure and electric equipment operate

automatically next time when there is power and thus cause accidents.

General contractor-controlled circuit has this function.

Short circuit protection

When electric appliance or wiring insulation in electrical control circuit is

confronted with damages, load short circuit or wiring errors, short troubles

will come into being. Transient fault current generated when there is short

circuit is more than 10 times to dozens of times of the rated current.

 Strong electro-dynamic force of electrical equipment or distributing line

due to short circuit current can damage, generate arc and even cause fire.

Short circuit protection requires to shut off power in a short time after

short troubles. And common method is to connect fuse protector or low

voltage circuit breaker. Action current of low voltage circuit is 1.2 times of

starting current of electric motor.

Overcurrent protection

Overcurrent refers to the operating state of electric motor or electrical

apparatus element surpassing the rated current. Overcurrent is generally

smaller than short circuit current and within 6 times of the rated current.

The possibility of over current in electric current is bigger than short

circuit, especially when electric motor switches on and has positive and

negative inversion frequently. Under the condition of overcurrent, if current

value can get right before the maximum allowable temperature rise,

electrical apparatus elements can still operate normally, but impact

current caused by over current will damage electric motor and the

generated instant electromagnetic torque will damage mechanical

transmission components. Thus, it is necessary to shut off power.

 Over current protection is often realized through over current relay.

Connecting coil of over current relay to circuit under protection, when

current reaches to the setting value, over current relay operates. And the

normally closed contact is connected to the branch where

the contactor coil is to shut off contractor coil. Then, shut off the main

contact of the contactor in the main circuit to shut off electric motor in

time.

Overload protection

Overload refers to the operating state when running current of electric

motor surpasses the rated current but smaller than 1.5 times of the rated

current. And the running state is within the range of running state of over

current. If electric motor is under the condition of overload operation for a

long time, temperature rise of the winding will surpass the allowable value

and be insulation ageing and damaged. Overload protection requires not

operating instantly due to influence of short-time impact current of electric

motor or short circuit current, and thus thermal relay is usually used as

overload protection element.

When a current which is as big as 6 times of the rated current passes

 through thermal relay, it should wait 5s before operation. Before the

thermal relay operates, heating elements of the thermal relay can have

been burned out. Therefore, when using thermal relay for overload

protection, short circuit protection devices such as fuse protector or low

voltage circuit breaker must be installed at the same time.

Buy a surge protection device, relay or circuit breaker on ATO.com to

protect your electrical device.

Calculating Short-Circuit
Current
One of the most fundamental calculations made on a power
distribution system is that which yields available short-circuit current.
The September – October 2012 issue of IAEI magazine included an
article titled “Going to Basics, Maximum Fault Current” which spoke to
this topic but did not get into the math. I have received many requests
ever since to get into the math. I trust this article will satisfy inquiring
minds with details around calculating available fault current and
provide some equations for the student to explore.

Available Short-Circuit Current

Maximum available short-circuit current is an important parameter for

every power distribution system as it provides a data point necessary
to ensure equipment is being applied within its rating and the system
is performing to meet expectations. Available short-circuit current is
used in many other applications as well.
The National Electrical Code demands this data point for enforcement
of such Sections as 110.9, Interrupting Rating; 110.10 Circuit
Impedance, Short-Circuit Current Ratings, and other Characteristics;
and 110.24 Available Fault Current. Whether you are a designer,
installer or inspector, you will at some point in your career be faced
with calculating available fault current. Understanding the math behind
this and how calculated short-circuit currents are used can only
broaden knowledge and understanding. It may also help us realize that
a qualified individual should be the one making these calculations. So
for the sake understanding, I offer this article to get you on your way.

Fundamentals of Calculating Short-Circuit Current

Everything you need to know about calculating fault currents, you

learned in circuits 101, trigonometry, and basic math classes. Figure 1
illustrates a simple single-line diagram that very well could be your
basic service entrance for a commercial or industrial installation.
 Figure 1. Single Line
Diagram
Figure 2 is the basic circuit diagram of what is represented in Figure 1
and that would be used to calculate available fault current at any point
in the above simple single line diagram. Engineers will call that which
you see in Figure 2 an impedance diagram as it basically converts each
component in the Figure 1 above into impedance values. For those of
you who are up on circuits 101, what you see below, when all
impedances are added together, is a “Thevanin Equivalent” circuit
which includes an impedance and a voltage source. This basic circuit
will be used throughout this article.
 Figure 2.
Impedance Diagram (Circuit)
Assumptions will have to be made for calculations and to simplify our
work for this document.

The assumptions for the transformer that will be used as part of the
example for this article will include that which follows. This information
should be available when reading the nameplate of the transformer.

Transformer kVA 1500

Primary Voltage 4,160 V
Secondary Voltage 480 V
% Impedance 5.75%

The assumption is for the utility available short-circuit current. For this
exercise 50,000 amps will be used. Before a study is conducted, the
utility is contacted to obtain this information. They may provide the
available fault current in one of a few different ways. The most
straightforward and probably most seen data from the utility will be an
available fault current in kA. Some utilities may provide the data as
short-circuit MVA instead. This article will provide equations to
accommodate both forms of input but cater to a utility available short-
circuit current of 50 kA.

With regard to conductor impedance, the following calculations will

ignore the resistance of the conductor and only use the reactance. This
will do two things for the sake of this article. First, it will result in a
higher fault current than would be calculated had we taken into
consideration both the resistance and reactance. Second, it will keep
the math simple. A final section of this article will provide analysis
results that include the resistance and reactance of the conductors and
the utility. The methods used mirror those used by such software
programs as SKM Systems Analysis A-Fault.

This article will also assume no motor contribution. Maximum available

short-circuit current should include all short-circuit contributors. We
are not including this contribution for this effort for simplicity sake.

Basic Transformer Calculations

The very first step of this process is the calculation of full-load amps
(FLA) for the transformer. Yet another basic calculation that an
electrical professional will have to perform at some point in their career
and that some perform many times a day. The equations for
calculating FLA are included below:

FLA Secondary = kVA

(√3)×(kVsec)

FLA Secondary = 1500

[(√3)×(0.480)] =1,804 Amps

This 1500 kVA transformer has a secondary FLA of 1,804 amps. This
parameter is necessary to select the secondary conductors for this
transformer. Based on this FLA and the use of Table 310.15(B)(16)
from NEC 2014, the conductors used on the secondary of the
transformer will be a quantity of 5-500 MCM conductors per phase.
Calculating Short-Circuit Current On Secondary of Main
Transformer

There are two ways to approach calculating the available fault current
at the secondary of a transformer. We can calculate the maximum
amount that the transformer will let through, as if the power
generation facility was hooked directly to the line side of the
transformer, or we can calculate the available fault current considering
the provided available fault current from the utility. The former
approach which results in the maximum amount of fault current that a
transformer will let through is referred to as an “infinite bus”
calculation. The circuit of figure 2 can be re-drawn to include zero
impedance for the utility which will reduce the overall impedance of the
circuit and so increase the value of calculated short-circuit current.
Figure 3 will yield the maximum available fault current that a
transformer can supply.

Figure 3.
Infinite Bus equivalent circuit diagram

Figure 3 only includes the impedance of the transformer. The equation

to calculate the maximum available fault current that a transformer
can supply is as follows:

Isc = (Transformer kVA) × 100

 (√3)×(Secondary kV)×(%Z transformer)

Using the information stated above for the example 1500 kVA
transformer for this example, the maximum available fault current that
this specific transformer will let through is 31,378 amps and is
calculated as follows:

Isc = 1500 × 100

(√3)×(0.480)×(5.75) = 31,378 amps

What this tells us is that the secondary of the transformer cannot see
any more fault current than what we have calculated. There are NO
changes on the utility side that can impact this available fault current
to a point where it would be greater than 31,378 amps. The only way
this service would see more than 31,378 amps would be if we changed
the transformer and the new transformer which would presumably be
the same in all other characteristics, has a different % impedance.
Figure 4 is a table that includes the results of varying the impedance of
the subject transformer +/- 20% in increments of 5% as compared
with the 5.75% impedance value used in this example. This illustrates
how a change in transformer impedance will impact the maximum
available fault current that it can let through.

As illustrated in figure 4, changing a transformer and varying its

impedance can have a significant impact on the system. If I were to
hazard a guess, I would say that in most cases, a utility changing the
service-entrance transformer would be recognized by the facility. The
challenge would be for the facility owner or resident employees to
understand how that change may impact their power distribution
system. When changes are made, labels like that included in Section
110.24 of the NEC, should be updated.
 Figure
4. Impact of varying the impedance (+ / – 20%) of a 1500 kVA transformer
This calculation does not consider the source impedance of the utility
and nor does it include any load-side conductors. Let’s next explore the
impact of adding in the utility available fault current.

Calculating Short-Circuit Current Including Utility

Available Fault Current

As in most situations, we take conservative shortcuts, conservative on

the side of safety, until situations present themselves that warrant
digging into the details. The above shortcut for calculating fault current
is conservative, in that it did NOT consider the utility available fault
current yielding a maximum value. When considering interrupting and
other similar ratings, devices and equipment that can accommodate
this conservative value of fault current need no further investigation.
When new or existing equipment cannot handle this conservatively
high available fault current, further detailed analysis could be
conducted or the equipment could be replaced or sized appropriately.
The following will consider adding utility provided available fault
current. Specifically, 50 kA available from the utility. This will illustrate
that the calculated 31,378 amps could be reduced by doing so.

Below, are two equations that address when kA is available and when
Short-Circuit MVA is available. For this example, we will use the
equation below that assumes the utility has provided you with an
available fault current in kA.
The circuit diagram now looks like that shown in figure 5.

Figure 5.
Circuit diagram that includes both transformer and utility source impedance.

The first step required is to convert the utility provided available fault
current information (50 kA) into a source impedance.
When kA is provided by the utility:

%Z Utility = KVA Transformer × 100

(Isc Utility) × (√3) × (kV Primary)

When Short-Circuit MVA is provided by the Utility:

%Z Utility = KVA Transformer

Short – Circuit kVA of Utility System

For a given utility available fault current of 50 kA, the %Z of the utility
is calculated as follows

%Z Utility = 1500 × 100

(50,000) × (√3) × (4.160) = 0.420

Figure 6 provides utility source impedance values for varying utility

available fault currents for this specific example. As noted above, the
transformer kVA and primary voltage will play a key role in these
values.

Figure 6. Utility source impedance values for

various levels of utility available fault current

The equation for calculating the available fault current at the

secondary of the transformer which includes the impedance of the
utility is as follows:

Isc = (Transformer KVA) × 100)

(√3) × (Secondary KV) × [(%Ztransformer)+(%Z Utility)]

Inserting all of the known variables, the new available fault current is
calculated as follows:

Isc = 1500 × 100

(√3)×(0.480)× [(5.75)+(0.4164)] = 29,259 Amps

If we compare the infinite bus calculation and that which included the
source impedance of the utility (available fault current of 50,000
amps) we see that the available short-circuit current dropped from
31,378 amps to 29,259 amps, a 6.8% reduction in available fault
current (2,119 amps).

The impact of a varying utility available fault current is illustrated in

figure 7. This table shows how the calculated available short-circuit
current varies for changing utility source fault current values. The 50
kA utility available fault current is used as the value to which changes
are compared. It is interesting to see that increasing the available fault
current from the utility, assuming a starting point of 50 kA, doesn’t
have as great of an impact as one would think. For example, doubling
the utility available fault current from 50 kA to 100 kA only increases
the transformer secondary available fault current by 3%, or 1,022
amps. For most overcurrent protective device application, this change
should not be significant. I have heard some say we should not label
the service-entrance equipment because the utility could make
switching changes on the line side which would impact the number on
the label. Figure 7 is a good example that shows that even if an infinite
bus was not used, changes on the utility side do not have as significant
of an impact on the short-circuit current as one would think.

Figure 7. Impact of
varying utility available fault currents on the power distribution system
Just to recap where we are in this discussion, the available fault
currents are as in figure 7a.

The next thing we have to consider is the conductor on the secondary

of the transformer. This will reduce the available fault current even
further.

Calculating – After Length of Conductor

Conductors can have a considerable impact on available fault current.

Let’s continue the analysis of this 1500 kVA transformer example
adding parallel 500MCM conductors on its load side.
The equivalent circuit has already been provided as part of figure 1.
Now let’s review the impact of conductor length on available fault
current. We need the following equation:

The data needed for this example is retrieved from the National
Electrical Code. From Table 9 of NEC 2014 for a 500 MCM conductor in
steel conduit, the Xl (reactance) is found to be 0.048 Ohms/1000ft. For
this example, as stated earlier, we are only using the reactance value
which will result in slightly higher short-circuit current values and make
the math for this publication more palatable. For a 1500 kVA
transformer with 1,804 full load amps, we will need 5- 500MCM
conductors in parallel per phase. The calculation is made as follows:

the equation to calculate the available fault current is as follows:

Putting in all of the known variables, we calculated the ISC as follows:

The same calculation assuming an infinite bus, removing the utility

impedance, is as follows:
To summarize again,

As can be seen here, including more details reduces the available fault
current. In this case the fault current was reduced from 31,378 amps
to 26,566 amps, approximately 15.3%.

Figure
8. Summary of calculations and comparison with other tools to calculate available
fault current.

Final Calibration

So we have walked through the calculation of available fault current for

service-entrance equipment. We showed how shortcuts result in
conservative available short-circuit currents which, for the purpose of
evaluating interrupting ratings and / or SCCR ratings, provide a safety
factor for the design. We also showed how reducing available fault
currents through a more detailed analysis can be achieved but takes
more effort and expertise. Let’s look at the above example with an eye
on other tools that may be available.

There are various tools at our disposal when we consider calculating

available fault current. Some are quite expensive and take trained
specialists to use. Those would include such software applications as
SKM Systems Analysis tools. These applications are indeed quite
thorough and produce very detailed reports. There are also tools that
are free such as the Eaton Bussmann FC2 short-circuit calculator.
Figure 8 summarizes what we accomplished above AND provides a
comparison with SKM and with the Bussmann FC2 application. The
Bussmann FC2 calculator is free and available on the web or for any
IPHONE or ANDROID via either products App Store. Visit
www.cooperbussmann.com/fc2 for more information. You will note that
the SKM software result leverages both the real and reactive
component of the conductor. The impedance values were taken
straight from Table 9 in NEC 2014 for copper conductors in steel
conduit.

Again, none of the examples shown above and included in this article
considers motor contribution. This was an exercise meant to provide
some background to the discussion of short-circuit currents and so
simplicity was our friend. Motor contribution can be very important for
these calculations. From a math and/or system circuit perspective,
when you include motor contribution the impedance is in parallel with
the utility source impedance, transformer impedance and the
conductor impedance. This acts to reduce the overall impedance in the
circuit of figure 2 and hence increasing the calculated short-circuit
current. The reset is left to the student. (I’ve always wanted to say
that.)

Closing Remarks

Available fault current is a very important parameter to consider in

your design, installation and inspection. Tools are available on the
market that help calculate available short-circuit current. Leverage
these resources to meet NEC and product application requirements.

As always, keep safety at the top of your list and ensure you and those
around you live to see another day.