2011 1st International Conference on Electric Power Equipment – Switching Technology – Xi’an – China
The Analysis of Secondary Arc Spectrum
Characteristics on UHV Transmission Lines
He Baina1, Lin Xin2, Xu Jianyuan2
(1.Shandong University of Technology, Department of Electric and Electronic Engineering, Zibo, China 255049)
(2.Shenyang University of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering, Liaoning Shenyang, China 110178,)
Abstract-On ultra-high-voltage (UHV) lines, the existence
of secondary arc impact on the stable operation of system,
so it is necessary to further study secondary arc. The paper
adopts total harmonic distortion (THD) to judge the status
of arc. First, the simulation model of secondary arc is
established by ATP software. Then, faulted phase voltage
and secondary arc are simulated in different close angle.
Last, spectrum characteristics and harmonic content of
faulted phase are analyzed, at the same time, THD is
obtained by Fourier algorithm. The simulation results
show that THD of faulted phase voltage decrease as close
angle in every fourth cycle, which provide the basis for
judging state of arc by using harmonic content of faulted
phase voltage. The analysis of spectrum characteristics of
harmonic content is certain significance in the design of
choosing insulation materials and insulation structure.
I．INTRODUCTION
The single-phase reclosing time of non-current
intermittent depend on arcing time of secondary arc on
UHV transmission lines. It is the most important
questions that secondary arc are extinguished rapidly to
ensure safe and stable operation of high-pressure system
[1,2]. Study shows that UHV line is longer, running
voltage is higher, line-to-line capacitance is larger and
interphase capacitive coupling is stronger, which make
secondary arc current is increased significantly,
recovery voltage is very high and arcing time is
longer[3~5]. All of these result in failure to achieve
single-phase automatic reclosing, which is a technical
problem for UHV. Therefore, the paper studies spectrum
characteristics of recovery voltage and secondary arc
current on UHV transmission lines, which provides
theoretical basis for choosing method of suppressing
secondary arc.
The research is supported by the Cultivation Found of the Key
Scientific and Technical Innovation Project ， Ministry of
978-1-4577-1272-2/11/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
Education of China（No.707018）and the Special Found of
Doctoral Disciplines, Ministry of Education of China（No.
20092102110001）
II．PROCESS OF SECONDARY ARC
When the UHV transmission line is struck by
lightning or other reasons, it happens the single-phase
earthing fault, at the same time, the circuit breakers on
both sides of fault phase will trip and excise fault from
the system. As shown in Fig.1, A phase happens
single-phase earthing fault, but the circuit breakers on
both sides of fault phase will not separate immediately
due to relay protection installment as well as circuit
breaker movement detention, so A phase is still operate
with fault, the arc between fault phase and fault point is
called primary arc. Subsequently, the circuit breakers of
A phase trip but B and C phase are still in operation of
transmitting load, so non-fault phases will continue to
provide current to fault point by C12 , C 0 and M.
The current is called secondary arc current and the arc is
called secondary arc[6 ～ 9]. After secondary arc
extinguishing, the voltage to ground on fault point is
called recovery voltage. If the recovery voltage is
oversized, then secondary arc will be likely to reignite
again.
Fig.1 Process of Secondary arc
Whether the secondary arc will be reignited depends
on its two parameters: secondary arc current and
recovery voltage. Whether the secondary arc is
52
extinguished favorably affects the success of 900

autoreclosing. Therefore, studying the characteristics of [kV]

600
recovery voltage and secondary arc current of fault
phase that has some guiding significance of improving 300

the stability of the system. 0

III. SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS OF -300

-600

FAULT PHASE VOLTAGE

-900
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 [s] 1.0

A. Simulation Model (file hh.pl4; x-var t) v:X0011A

(b) Power angle is 30o

The paper simulates and analyzes developing process
of secondary arc on UHV transmission lines. The 900
[kV]
simulation circuit is shown in Fig.2, QF express circuit 600

breaker, X p express high resistance, X N express

the neutral point small resistance, Z 0 express
300

zero-sequence impedance of system, Z 1 express 0

positive sequence impedance of system. The UHV -300

transmission lines use LGJ-8*500 wiring method,

diameter of conducting wire is 30mm, split space is
-600

400mm, line-to-line distance of level arrange is 17m, -900

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
[s]
total length of lines is 363km and the other line (file hh.pl4; x-var t) v:X0011A

parameters refer to reference [10]. (c) Power angle is 60o

900
[kV]
600

Z 0 = j150.6Ω Z 0 = (1.8 + j 78.2)Ω

300
Z1 = (7.2 + j 630.8)Ω X P = 2022.8Ω Z1 = (20.6 + j 58.3)Ω
X N = 442Ω 0

-300
Fig.2 Simulation model of Secondary Arc
-600

The paper simulates secondary arc by EMTP-ATP -900

software. Setting the power supply initial phase for -90o,

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 [s] 1.0
(file hh.pl4; x-var t) v:X0011A

assuming that the system happen single-phase earthing (d) Power angle is 90o
fault at 0.05s at the end of A-phase line, which show Fig.3 Voltage Waveform of Fault Phase
that the switch close to simulate short-circuit when the
power supply voltage is zero, then the arc being put into According to the simulation diagram it is clear that
the system, the circuit breakers trip at 0.1s, the arc is the power system is in normal operation before 0.05s
extinguished when arc current is zero. Separately to and the voltage is a standard sine wave, the power
change the power supply initial phase angle, the relative system happen circuit short fault at 0.05s but circuit
fault voltage simulation waveforms shown in Fig.3. breaker do not immediately trip, at this time it generates
900
primary arc on lines and the voltage of primary arc
[kV]
600 much lower than the normal operation of the system
voltage. Subsequently, circuit breaker trip at 0.1s, it
300
generates secondary arc on lines and the voltage of
0 secondary arc is less than primary arc.
-300
As can be seen from the diagram, the reignition time
is reducing along with phase angle of tripping
-600
increment. When the phase angle of tripping is 90
-900 degrees, the reignition time is the shortest, if it happens
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
(file hh.pl4; x-var t) v:X0011A
[s]
the single-phase earthing fault at this time, then the
(a) Power angle is 0o
secondary arc is most difficult to extinguish. For more
in-depth study secondary arc, it is necessary to take into
account harmonic content changes of faulted phase
voltage. The paper considers emphatically the transition
process of extinguishment and reignition of arc, and the
variation of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), which
have the instruction function of studying methods of

53
extinguishing secondary arc. content are quite few. It obtains THD=83.482% through
the computation. In order to better analyze the
B．Analysis of Harmonic Content relationship between THD and system is failure or not,
the paper analyzes the three-phase line harmonic
The output voltage of faulted phase includes various content of different phase angle of tripping, utilizes the
subharmonics component, which causes the waveform Fourier algorithm in ATP to analyze harmonic content
to have the distortion. These harmonic are the periodic of different phase angle of tripping as shown in Table 1.
variation, therefore it may utilize the Fourier algorithm
to analyze harmonic. The expression is shown on
formula (1). Tab.1 THD Comparative Analysis in Different Angles
N −1 2π
−j mn Three- Phase angle of tripping
S m = ∑ s ( n)e N
， m = 0,1,......., N (1)
n =0
phase 0o 30 o 60 o 90 o 120 o 150 o

A 83.482 33.469 23.705 52.091 23.185 21.292

In formula (1) s (n) is sampling value, N is B 0.006 0.011 0.006 0.003 0.017 0.014
C 0.016 0.027 0.024 0.003 0.011 0.013
sampling points, m is harmonic times. If
As can be seen from the table, the two nonfaulted
U m = S m ，the harmonic component sum total is phase lines only include power frequency component,
the total harmonic distortion with phase angle of
1
tripping change little, moreover is very small, almost
⎛ N 2⎞ 2
defined as D = ⎜ ∑ U m ⎟ . THD is used for close to zero. The total harmonic distortion of phase A is
⎝ m=2 ⎠ reduced along with the increase of phase angle of
tripping between 0o～90o and 90o～150o, and the THD
weighing how many harmonic components in the power has the maximum value at 0o and 90o, which explain the
secondary arc is not easy to extinguish if it happens
D
source, and it is defined for σ THD = × 100% . single-phase earthing fault at this time. Considering the
U1 reignition time of arc mentioned above, it is known that
the secondary arc is the most difficult to extinguish if
When the phase angle of tripping is 0 degree, the supply voltage is at peak value.
harmonic of faulted phase voltage of secondary arc is
analyzed. The spectrum characteristics of harmonic IV. SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS OF FAULT
content are shown in Figure 4. It takes the standard by
PHASE CURRENT
the fundamental wave, other various subharmonics and
the fundamental wave carry on the comparison, first At present, the research of single-phase self-adaptive
half chart for various subharmonics reclose again mainly focuses on signal analysis of
amplitude-frequency characteristic per-unit value, voltage and current of faulted phase [11,12]. The
second half chart for various subharmonics simulation and harmonic analysis of voltage are
phase-frequency characteristic. introduced in detail in the preamble, and this section
mainly introduces simulation and analysis of current.
The simulation waveform is shown in Fig.5.
2500
[A]

1500

500

-500

-1500

-2500

Fig.4 Spectrum Characteristics of Harmonic Content 0o Switching

-3500
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 [s] 1.0

According to Fig.4 it can be seen that the voltage of (file hh.pl4; x-var t) c:X0019A-X0001A

faulted phase includes the direct component and the (a) Power angle is 0o
massive higher harmonic. These harmonic mainly
includes secondary harmonic and triple-harmonic,
quintuple or quintuple above various subharmonics

54
 1500 The simulation results show that single-phase ground
[A]
fault happen, faulted phase voltage contains a large
500 number of harmonics and THD is larger than ever due
to the existence of primary arc and secondary arc.
-500
Through the fault phase voltage and current simulation
and Fourier analysis, which comes to the conclusion
-1500
that at the peak in the power supply voltage secondary
arc is the most difficult to extinguish and the harm to
-2500
insulation is the greatest. The analysis of spectrum
characteristics of harmonic content is certain
-3500
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 [s] 1.0 significance in the design of choosing insulation
(file hh.pl4; x-var t) c:X0019A-X0001A
materials and insulation structure.
(b) Power angle is 30o
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(d) Power angle is 90o
Single-phase Earth Fault on UHV Transmission Line[D].
Fig.5 Current Waveform of Fault Phase Shenyang University of Technology, 2011.
[11] Fitton D S，W DunnR，Aggarwal R K，et al．Design and
As can be seen from Figure 5, when the line is in implementation of an adaptive single pole autoreclosure technique
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stochastic characteristic, it will vary because of the
E-mail of authors:hbn770425@163.com
environment influence, the nonlinear response will be
very intense. With the close angle increases, the THD is
also increasing. The greater the THD is, the most
difficult to extinguish arc. When close angle is 90o, the
value of THD is 67.382% through Fourier analysis,
which show the secondary arc is the most difficult to
extinguish if supply voltage is at peak value.

V. CONCLUSION

55