What Is Trip Circuit Supervision

There are different contacts connected in series along a trip circuit of an

electrical circuit breaker. There must be some situation when the circuit breaker
should not trip even a faulty current passes through its power contacts. Such
situations are low gas pressure in SF6 circuit breaker, low air pressure in
pneumatic operated circuit breaker etc. In this situation the trip coil of the CB
must not be energized to trip the CB. So there must be NO contacts associated with
gas pressure and air pressure relays, connected in series with breaker trip coil.
Another scheme of trip coil is that it should not be re energized once the circuit
breaker is opened. That is done by providing one NO contact of breaker auxiliary
switch in series with trip coil. In addition to that the trip circuit of a CB has
to pass through considerable numbers of intermediate terminal contacts in relay,
control panel and circuit breaker kiosk.

So if any of the intermediate contacts is detached, the circuit breaker fails to

trip. Not only that, if DC supply to the trip circuit fails, the CB will not trip.
To overcome this abnormal situation, trip circuit supervision becomes very
necessary. The figure below shows the simplest form of trip circuit healthy scheme.
Here a series combination of one lamp, one push bottom and one resistor is
connected across the protective relay contact as shown. In healthy situation all
the contacts except protective relay contact are in close position. Now if push
bottom (PB) is pressed, the trip circuit supervision network is completed and lamp
glows indicating that the breaker is ready for tripping.

trip circuit supervision

The above scheme is for supervision while circuit breaker is closed. This scheme is
called post close supervision. There is another supervision scheme which is called
pre and post close supervision.

This trip circuit supervision scheme is also quite simple. The only difference is
that here in this scheme, one NC contact of same auxiliary switch is connected
across the auxiliary NO contact of the trip circuit. The auxiliary NO contact is
closed when CB is closed and auxiliary NC contact is closed when CB is open and
vice versa. Hence, as shown in the figure below when the circuit breaker is closed
the trip circuit supervision network is completed via auxiliary NO contact but when
the circuit breaker is open the same supervision network is completed via NC
contact. The resistor is used series with the lamp for preventing unwanted tripping
of circuit breaker due to internal short circuit caused by failure of the lamp.
Trip Circuit Supervision
So far whatever we have discussed it is only for locally controlled installation
but for a distance control installation, relay system is necessary. The figure
below shows the trip circuit supervision scheme wherever a remote signal is
required.
Trip Circuit Supervision
When trip circuit is healthy and circuit breaker is closed, relay A is energized
which closes the NO contact A1 and hence relay C is energized. Energized relay C
keeps NC contact in open position. Now if the circuit breaker is open, relay B is
energized which closes No contact B1 hence relay C is energized. As C is energized,
it keeps the NC contact C1 in open position. While CB is closed, if there is any
discontinuity in the trip circuit relay A is de-energized which opens contact A1
and consequently relay C is de-energized and which make the NC contact C1 in close
position and hence alarm circuit is actuated. Trip circuit supervision is
experienced by relay B with the circuit breaker is open in a similar manner as
relay A with the circuit breaker is closed. Relays A and C are time-delayed by
copper slugs to prevent spurious alarms during tripping or closing operations. The
resistors are mounted separately from the relays and their values are chosen such
that if any one component is inadvertently short-circuited, a tripping operation
will not take place.
The alarm circuit supply should be separated from main trip supply so that the
alarm can be actuated even the trip supply failed.