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Sequence Components
Sequence Components
Introduction
Electrical systems occasionally experience short circuits. These short circuits are
hazardous to the safety of both equipment and people. Though the protective devices will
isolate the faults safely, the parts of the system should withstand the resulting mechanical
and thermal stresses. Fault impedance and current estimates also form input for the
setting and coordination of protective devices like overcurrent relay, distance relay etc.
Hence it is very important to estimate the magnitude of the fault currents. The
equipments are selected based on this value. Fault currents can be estimated by either by
hand calculation or by fault analysis program.
Sources of Fault Current
The fault current in a system can be contributed by any of the following.
» Synchronous Motors and Condensers
» Induction Machines
» Synchronous Generators
» Electrical Utility System
» Distributed Generation
Faults in a 3 phase system can be single line to ground, line to line ground, line to line or
three phase. Power system operation during any of these faults can be analyzed using
sequence components. The method of sequence component was discovered by Charles.
L. Fortescue in 1918. He came up with the following intuition that [any 3φ unbalanced
system has 6 degrees of freedom; whereas, a 3 balanced system has only 2 degrees of
freedom. Hence an unbalanced 3φ system having 6 degrees of freedom can be
synthesized by 3 sets of balanced system each having 2 degrees of freedom].
Note: this idea can be easily extended to N-phase system where N 3 .
For a three phase system with phase sequence abc, the three sets of balanced phasors are
called positive, negative and zero sequences.
Va Z s Z m Z m I a
V Z Z Z I
b m s m b -----------(6)
Vc Z m Z m Z s I c
V abc I abc
Substituting,
Ia I a0
I T I1
b a
I c I 2
a
and
Va Va0
V T V 1
b a
Vc V 2
a
1 a a 2
Va0 Z s 2 Z m 0 0 I a0
1 1
Va 0 Zs Zm 0 Ia
V 2 0 0 Z s Z m I 2
a a
a Reference Phase.
T changes with Reference Phasor.
Q. Write a transformation with b-Phase as Reference Phase.
Simplifying,
Let Z0 =Zs + 2Zm
Z1 =Zs - Zm
Z2 =Zs - Zm
Thus, we see that positive, negative and zero sequence networks are decoupled. In
general, if Z matrix has following symmetry we can decouple the positive, negative and
zero sequence networks.
Z s Z m1 Z m 2 Z0
Z m 2 Z s Z m1 , then Z 012 T Z abc T Z1 where Z 0 Z s Z m1 Z m 2
1
Z abc
Z m1 Z m 2 Z s Z 2
Z1 Z s a 2 Z m1 aZ m 2 Z 2 Z s aZ m1 a 2 Z m 2
Thus all the sequence components can be determined from the above equations.
Advantages of Sequence Transformation
1. It is used when the network is balanced. A 3n 3n linear system solver
I abc Y abc V abc can be decoupled into three n n linear system solver
I 0 Y0V0 , I1 YV1 1 and I 2 Y2V2 . Hence it provides easy decoupling of the
network.
2. It can be applied for both balanced and unbalanced loads.
3. Zero sequence currents provide sensitive earth fault detection technique.
Step 3-
Inject 1.0 p.u. current at bus l i.e. Let,
Compute Vl of desired sequence i.e. solve
For a Three Phase Fault only Positive Sequence Network is considered. The fault currents
are given by the following equations.
Ea
I1 (solid fault)
Z1
Ea
I1 (Fault through impedence Zf)
Z1 Z f
LL fault:
Z 0 Z1 Z 2 Z abc
I0 1 1 1 Ia
1
I 3 2 1 1 I b
I 0 3 3 I
c
I 2 I 0 I 0 I I 0 I 0 I 0 0