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CHAPTER-4
TRIP CIRCUIT /RELAY SUPERVISION
A, Circuit breaker trip circuit supervision.
The trip coil is one of the most important parts of the circuit breaker. When energised it causes the
mechanism of the circuit breaker to open its main contacts in the power circuit. The circuit breaker
can be tripped through the manual control switch either from the remote control panel in the control
room or from the local control cabinet in the switchyard. The trip coil can also be energised through
the protection relay trip contacts to isolate the circuit from fault.

Power system protection effectiveness depends on the healthiness of the trip circuit as well as trip
coil and hence this should be supervised continuously. By trip circuit it is meant not only the trip
cable from the panel to the breaker but also all the trip circuit wiring in the panel. The trip coil of
circuit breaker can be supervised with an indicating lamp or relay. In the earlier days the trip circuit
was supervised by lamps. Post close and pre- close supervision of the trip coil is achieved using N/O
and N/C contacts of circuit breaker. This is illustrated in the sketch enclosed. The resistor in the pre
close circuit is to limit the current in the trip coil, if the lamp is shorted by the hand reset contact of
the trip relay. In this method of supervision only visual indication is possible. The series resistor in
the post close circuit is to prevent the accidental energisation of trip coil due to the shorting of
filament of the lamp.

When annunciation is required, the trip circuit supervision relay is used. During circuit breaker post
close condition coil A alone comes in the circuit and during pre close (open) condition both coils A
& B come in series. For effective pre close supervision one end of B coil should be connected to the
N/O aux. contact of C.B. and the other to the N/C aux. contact as shown in the sketch. If one end of B
coil is shorted in the panel to save additional cabling, then supervision of trip circuit cable is not
possible during pre close condition.

The C coil of the relay is provided with a time delay on drop off of 350 to 800 msec. to avoid
spurious alarm during breaker operation and also when there is a momentary dip in DC control
voltage. A hand reset reverse flag is provided in the alarm unit.
In the earlier days when the circuit breakers were having only one trip coil, effective pre close
supervision was of utmost importance. The healthiness of the trip coil must be known before closing
the circuit breaker.

When circuit breakers are provided with duplicated trip coils or separate trip coils for single and three
phase tripping, each trip coil should be supervised independently by lamp or relay for effective
supervision. Paralleling of trip coils will defeat trip coil supervision. The relay used for trip circuit
supervision is VAX31or MVAXM31.

B, Trip relay supervision

High burden master trip relays of hand reset type can be supervised by means of lamps or
relays. In case of supervision by means of lamps an external resistor is added in series with the lamp

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to prevent inadvertent energisation of trip relay due to accidental shorting of filament of the bulb. In
case of relays VAX21 or MVAXM21 relays are employed. The alarm coil can be connected in such a
way that the same can be used as a DC supervision relay for the trip relay circuit. The alarm unit is
provided with a time delay on drop off to prevent spurious alarm during momentary dip in voltage in
the control circuit. A hand reset reverse flag is provided in the alarm unit.
High Burden relays like VAJHM13,23,33, 53 in conventional cases and MAJM15,25,45 relays in
MIDOS cases can only be supervised. However low burden relays like
VAJSM33 ,VAJSM43 in conventional cases and MVAJM11,MVAJM41 in MIDOS cases cannot be
supervised either by lamp or relay.
It is to be borne in mind that while supervising a relay, no other relay is connected in parallel to
the supervised relay. If a relay is connected in parallel, effective supervision is lost.ie. The
supervision relay cannot detect the coil open circuit condition of the supervised relay unless the
parallel connected relays coils also gets open circuited.
Due to the above reason, high burden trip relays in high impedance busbar protection cannot be
supervised.

C- D.C. Control circuit supervision

D.C.Control circuits are supervised with aux. relays with reverse flag. The aux. relays are
provided with time delay on drop off to prevent spurious operation during momentary dip in voltage
in the control circuit. The aux. relays VAA11 & MVAAM11 are used for supervision of control
circuit.

Bep-8

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