IEEE Industry Applications Society
Annual Meeting
New Orleans, Louisiana, October 5-9,1997
ON THE ANALYSIS OF LIGHTNING SURGES ARRIVING TO
CABLE TERMINATED TRANSFORMER USING (EMTP)
M. H. SHWEHDI and J. M. BAKHASHWAIN
Electrical Engineering Dept.
King Fahad University of Petroleum & Minerals
Dhahran 3 1261, Saudi Arabia
Phone (966) 860-2712 Fax (966) 860-3535 E-mail:mshwehdi@ dpc.kfupm.edu.sa
Abstract - Transformers and other system apparatus are
the most valuable and essential equipment in transmission
of electrical energy. The protection of such equipments
against transient overvoltages resulting from lightning
and other causes is of an important consideration in
power system design.
This paper presents analysis using EMTP on a
segment of apower system consisting of a 100 km, 345 kV
transmission line terminated at a substation transformer
345 / 115 kV through a cable. It is to determine the
optimum cable size and length that may attenuate and
distort overvoltages waveshape due to a lightning surge
on transmission line. A base EMTP case for the system
under study is evaluated without the presence of a
terminated cable, and latter used with different scenarios.
I. INTRODUCTION
Underground cables, O/H transmission lines and
transformers ( distribution or power ) are the most widely
used components of any electric power system. Because of
their widespread, they are subject to all types of system
overvoltages. These items withstand overvoltages to
different degrees, and so a study to predict the overvoltages
resulting at any point on the system due to a certain
transient condition is an essential task.
As system voltages increase, the required voltage rating
and protective characteristics increase with the same
proportion, however, the BIL of equipments increases
with a lesser proportion which makes it difficult to keep the
surge voltage below the equipment BIL.
For insulation co-ordination purposes in transmission lines
and substation equipments, it is essential to accurately
predict the lightning surge overvoltages that may hit the
power system.
The response of lightning surge on transmission lines and
cables have a great influence on the magnitude and
waveshape of the surge overvoltage arriving at the
0-7803-4067-1/97/$10.00 0 1997 IEEE.
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M.A. ABURAIDA
Training Center , SCECO-EAST
P. 0. Box 5 190
Dammam, 3 1422 Saudi Arabia
terminating transformers. This is due to the known fact that
when having two different surge impedance connected
together, it appears as a discontinuity to the traveling surge
and reflection and refraction will occur. The amount of the
reflected surge depends highly on the junction and
termination impedances.
In selecting surge protection schemes, the cable
termination used to connect a transmission line to a
substation apparatus should be considered in overvoltage
calculation. The use of underground cables serves to
attenuate and distort the surge arriving at the terminal
equipment.
11. ELECTROMAGNETIC TRANSIENT PROGRAM
Since the analysis presented in this work relies mainly on
the EMTP, a general description of the program and how it
works is necessary. EMTP is a time simulation program
created to represent power systems as we11 as their
components.
EMTP was developed first as an alternative digital
computer simulation tool to study high speed transient
phenomena in power systems, to the analog computer
model known as the Transient Network Analyzer (TNA).
Although this program was originally designed to study
transmission line surges and other high frequency
transients, it has become a general simulation tool.
Currently, it is often used for electric machines
representation, non-linear devices, power system control
and other uses.
A nodal admittance matrix method is used to solve
electromagnetic transients in arbitrary single or multi-phase
networks. Both, the method of characteristics for
distributed parameters and the trapezoidal rule of
integration for lumped parameters serve as the basis for this
derivation. The solution also uses an optimally ordered
triangular factorization with sparsity techniques.
 111. SYSTEM UNDER STUDY IV. MODELING TECHNIQUES

For analyzing the lightning overvoltages on a cable
terminated transmission line, the system illustrated in Fig
(1) is modeled in the EMTP program.
A 100 Km transmission line of 345 kV is used and is made
up of two sections each of 50 Km. The line is terminated
by a 500 MVA step down transformer 345KV I 115KV
and is connected by a cable. Different sizes of single core,
oil filled, copper conductor cables are used ; a short length
of 800 mm sq. in free air and long ones of 1000, 1150,
1300 mm sq. laid in an underground duct. The cables are
selected to carry 836A in free air or inside a duct.
mKAI2QUS
Cable
Transmission line: It is modeled through its distributed
parameters. In this model the resistance is pulled outside of
the distributed line and is rlepresented as a lumped element.
The rest is represented by the surge impedance, the
propagation velocity, and the line length. This is generally
the most common representation used.
Cables : The cables are also represented the same way as
the line.
The Step Down Transformi=
It is modeled by its stray capacitance to ground. The
transformer model subroutine is not adequate for lightning
surges study and so it is not used.
The Lightning: It is modieled as a step current source of
type 11. A value of 20KA for 20uS is used as it most
frequently occurs. Only a plositive monopolar type is used.

V. SIMUL,ATION TESTS
Fig (1): Circuit used to investigate cable attenuation
characteristics The lightning is simulated to strike the line at its mid-point
for the following cases :
Transformer Data : (i) The transmission line is open-circuited without a
Rated apparent power 500 MVA
cable used and without a transformer, merely a
Rated voltage 3451115 kV
transmission line hit by a lightning.
Rated currents 836.7 12510 A
Rated excitation current ,006 pu (ii) The same previous case with the transformer added at
Rated core loss .003 pu
the end of the line (no cable).
Sort circuit reactance .I232 pu
Capacitance to ground .064 1.004 pu (iii) A cable length of 8010 mm sq. size and lOOm length
BIL 900 kV is used as a terminator at the end of the line and the
simulation is carried with and without a transformer.
(two cases).
Saturation curve data :
(iv) A cable of 1000 mm sq. is used to terminate the line
B : 1.4142 1.5558 1.6404 1.8527 2.200 pu for lengths o f lOOOm and 2000m. Again, the simulations
H : 8.4853 39.758 94.374 638.19 1530.0 10E-3 PU are carried for the line with and without the step down
transformer (4 cases).
Oil Filled Cables : (v) The tests in (iv) are repeated for cables with sizes of
Size mm sq. 800 1000 1150 1300
1150 and 1300 mm sq.(8 cases ).
R IKm ,0221 .0176 .0156 .0138
LmH/Km ,212 .218 .221 .230
Case (i) is taken as the base case for comparison.
CuFIKm .236 ,251 .260 .274

VI. SIMULATION RESULTS

Transmission Line Data :
Z 350 The numerical results for eiach of the above cases showing
V 3E+5 Km I s the peak voltage transient are summarized in table (1):
length 100 Km

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TABLE (1)
VII. DISCUSSION
As it is clear from the EMTP output results in table (1) and
graphs in Figures 2, 3,4 & 5 that the presence of the
transformer at the end of the line without a cable serves by
its stray capacitance to attenuate the lightning overvoltage
by about 40 % compared to the open-circuited system
without a cable.
7“ ~,
“OW
SOMU00 _~-_______
Fig (2) : Case (I), base case
Now if a short length of a cable ( 100 meters of 800 mm
sq. cable size ) is introduced to the open circuited system
the overvoltage due to the lightning will be reduced from
6.98 MV to 6.46 MV.
On the other hand if a cable length of 1000 m (1 150 mm
sq. ) is used it will attenuate and distort the overvoltage by
about 60 - 70 %. See Fig (3) and Fig (4) below.
Fig (3): Overvoltage on a 1000 m , 1150 mm sq. cable
without a step down transfonner,(case iv )
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~
From the analysis it has been found that the cable size has
no significant effect on the traveling surge. It can be seen
from the values in table (1) for 1150 mm sq. lOOOm length
and 1300 mm sq. lOOOm length cables that the attenuation
on the two cable sizes used remained the same.
With the use of a cable 2Km long, the resulting
overvoltage 1.23 M V ( fig 5 ) is still above the transformer
BIL which is 0.9 MV, but at this stage application of a
normal surge arrester can protect the transformer.
VIII. CONCLUSION
Protection of transformers and other system equipment
against transient overvoltages resulting from lightning or
other causes is an important consideration in power
systems.
EMTP program simulation and modeling techniques
facilitate the analysis of such overvoltages in very
sophisticated graphical format with accurate depiction of
transient time.
MQX 697504et06
Min 0
Avg 341547
Rbr 6 97504et06 The results of the EMTP simulation were in very good
RMS I53819et06
CF 4 53459 agreement with the conceptual technical application of
FF ’ 4 50359
using a cable to terminate a transformer to a transmission
line which serves as to attenuate any overvoltage traveling
towards the transformer.
The cable length will affect the overvoltage magnitude
and waveshape appreciably, but the cable size will not.
IX. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors appreciate the hul computing and publishing
support of KFUPM.
X. REFERENCES
[ 11 Electromagnetic Transient Program (EMTP) , Revised
Rule Book Version 2.0 , Volume 1; Main Program, June
1989.
[2] A . Greenwood , Electrical Transients in Power
“
Arq 333652
A b i 198J75etG6
Systems, “ John Willey & Sons, 1991
RMS 526109
Cf 3 7 7 0 6
ri I 57687
[ 3 ] P.P. Barker, “Voltage Quadrupling on a UD cable,”
IEEE Trans. PWRD vol. 5 ,No. 1 Jan. 1990 .
[4] R. E. Owen and C. R. Clinkenbeard, “Surge protection
of UD cable systems.” IEEE Trans. PAS vol. 97 No. 5,
Sept. 1978, PartI.
[5] R. C. Dugan and W. L. Sponsler, “ Surge protection of
UD cable systems .” IEEE Trans. PAS vol. 97 No. 5, Sept
1978, Part 2.
2250
 XI. BIOGRAPHIES

M. H. Shwehdi (S'74, M'85, SM'90) received his B. Sc. (EE), from

University of Tripoli, Libya in 1972. He obtained his MSEE from the
University of Southern California and Ph.D. from Mississippi State
University in 1975 and 1985 respectively. He was a consultant to A. B.
Chance Company from 1981-1987, and Flood Engineer from 1990 to
1993. Dr. Shwehdi held teaching positions with the University of
Missouri-Columbia (1986-87), Texas A&I University (1987-88),
University of Florida (1988-91) and Penn. State University from 1991-
1993. At present he is with the King Fahd University of Petroleum &
Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia. Dr. Shwehdi is active in IEEE
activities both locally and nationally. He was named and awarded
IEEEAAS outstanding Supervisor for Student Research 1989, 1990 and
the IEEE outstanding student advisor in 1990.

J. M. Bakhashwain IEEE member, received his B. Sc. (EE), and

MSEE from KFUPM Dhahran, Saudi Arabia 1978, 1982 respectively.
He obtained his Ph. D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in
1989. His area of research is Control systems, power system transient
control. He is an Associate professor at the EE department with KFUPM.

M. A. Aburaida was born in Sudan. H e received his B. Sc. in

Electrical Engineering from University of Khartoum (Sudan) in
1980. H e worked for National Electricity Corporation in Sudan
and now with SCECO-EAST in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. H e is
currently working for an M. Sc. in Electrical Engineering in
KFUPM in Dhahran. His present research interest includes power
system modeling, transients and EMTP applications.

Fig (4): Overvoltage on a 1000 m , 1150 mm sq. cable

terminated to a step down transformer ( case iv )

Fig ( 5 ) : Overvoltage at the end of a transmission line with 2 Km ,

1300 m m sq. cable length (case v )

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