Switchgear and Protection

Switchgear:
The apparatus used for switching, controlling and protecting the electrical circuits and equipment is known as
switchgear.

Switchgear equipments:

There are four commonly four equipments:

1. Switch: A switch is a device which is used to open or close an electrical circuit in a convenient way. It can be
used under full-load or no-load conditions but it cannot interrupt the fault currents.
2. Fuse: A fuse is a short piece of wire or thin strip which melts when excessive current flows through it for
sufficient time. It is inserted in series with the circuit to be protected.
3. Circuit breaker: A circuit breaker is an equipment which can open or close a circuit under all conditions viz .
no load, full load and fault conditions.
4. Relay: A relay is a device which detects the fault and supplies information to the breaker for circuit
interruption. The relay detects the abnormal conditions in the electrical circuits by constantly measuring the
electrical quantities (voltage, current, frequency and phase angle) which are different under normal and fault
conditions.

Simple protection scheme:

A Typical relay circuit is shown in Fig. This diagram shows one phase of 3-phase system for simplicity. The relay
circuit connections can be divided into three parts.
1. First part is the primary winding of a current transformer (CT) which is connected in series with the line to be
protected.
2. Second part consists of secondary winding of CT and the relay operating coil.
3. Third part is the tripping circuit which may be either ac or dc. It consists of a source of supply, the trip coil of
the circuit breaker (CB) and the relay stationary contacts.

When a short circuit occurs at point F on the transmission line, the current is flowing in the line increases to an
enormous value. This results in a heavy current flow through the relay coil, causing the relay to operate by closing its
contacts. This in turn closes the trip circuit of the breaker, making the circuit breaker open and isolating the faulty
section from the rest of the system. In this way, the relay ensures the safety of the circuit equipment from damage and
normal working of the healthy portion of the system.

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Differential protection:
A differential relay is one that operates when the phasor difference of two or more similar electrical quantities
exceeds a pre-determined value.

i) If some current (500 A in this case) flows out of one side while a larger current (2000 A) enters the other side
as shown in Fig. 21.24 (i), then the difference of the CT secondary currents i.e. 10 - 2·5 = 7·5 A will flow
through the relay.
ii) If current flows to the fault from both sides as shown in Fig. 21.24 (ii), then sum of CT secondary currents i.e.
10 + 5 = 15 A will flow through the relay.

Common faults in transformers:

Common faults in transformer are three kinds:
(1) Open circuit: An open circuit in one phase of a 3-phase transformer may cause undesirable heating.
(2) Overheating: Overheating of the transformer is usually caused by sustained overloads or short-circuits and very
occasionally by the failure of the cooling system.
(3) Winding short-circuit (earth faults, phase-to-phase faults and inter turn faults ): Winding short-circuits (also called
internal faults ) on the transformer arise from deterioration of winding insulation due to overheating or mechanical
injury.

Construction: Fig. 22.12 shows the constructional details of a Buchholz relay. It takes the form of a domed vessel
placed in the connecting pipe between the main tank and the conservator. The device has two elements. The upper
element consists of a mercury type switch attached to a float. The lower element contains a mercury switch mounted
on a hinged type flap located in the direct path of the flow of oil from the transformer to the conservator. The upper
element closes an alarm circuit during incipient faults whereas the lower element is arranged to trip the circuit breaker
in case of severe internal faults.
Operation: The operation of Buchholz relay is as follows :

i) In case of incipient faults within the transformer, the heat due to fault causes the decomposition of some
transformer oil in the main tank. The products of decomposition contain more than 70% of hydrogen gas.

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 The hydrogen gas being light tries to go into the conservator and in the process gets entrapped in the upper
part of relay chamber. When a pre- determined amount of gas gets accumulated, it exerts sufficient pressure on
the float to cause it to tilt and close the contacts of mercury switch attached to it. This completes the alarm
circuit to sound an alarm.
ii) If a serious fault occurs in the transformer, an enormous amount of gas is generated in the main tank. The oil
in the main tank rushes towards the conservator via the Buchholz relay and in doing so tilts the flap to close
the contacts of mercury switch. This completes the trip circuit to open the circuit breaker controlling the
transformer.

Earth fault or leakage protection:

Operation: The three leads of the primary winding of power transformer are taken through the core of a current
transformer which carries a single secondary winding. The operating coil of a relay is connected to this secondary.
Under normal conditions (i.e. no fault to earth), the vector sum of the three phase currents is zero and there is no
resultant flux in the core of current transformer no matter how much the load is out of balance. Consequently, no
current flows through the relay and it remains inoperative. However, on the occurrence of an earth-fault, the vector
sum of three phase currents is no longer zero. The resultant current sets up flux in the core of the C.T. which induces
e.m.f. in the secondary winding. This energises the relay to trip the circuit breaker and disconnect the faulty
transformer from the system.

Circulating current scheme for transformer protection:

Operation: During normal operating conditions, the secondaries of CTs carry identical currents. Therefore, the
currents entering and leaving the pilot wires at both ends are the same and no current flows through the relays. If a

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ground or phase-to-phase fault occurs, the currents in the secondaries of CTs will no longer be the same and the
differential current flowing through the relay circuit will clear the breaker on both sides of the transformer.

Combined Leakage and Overload Protection:

Operation: Fig. 22.14 shows the schematic arrangement of combined leakage and overload protection. In this
system of protection, two overload relays and one leakage or earth relay are connected as shown. The two
overload relays are sufficient to protect against phase-to-phase faults. The trip contacts of overload relays and
earth- fault relay are connected in parallel. Therefore, with the energising of either overload relay or earth relay,
the circuit breaker will be tripped.

Protection of Motor:
Motor starter:

In the figure above, when START push is closed, the starter coil is energized through the transformer. As the starter
coil is energized, normally open (NO) contacts 5 are closed hence motor gets supply voltage at its terminal and it
starts rotating. This start coil also closes contact 4 which makes the starter coil energized even the START push
button contact is released from its close position. To stop the motor there are several normally closed (NC) contacts in
series with the starter coil as shown in the figure. One of them is STOP push button contact. If the STOP push button
is pressed, this button contact opens and breaks the continuity of the starter coil circuit consequently makes the starter
coil de-energized. Hence the contact 5 and 4 come back to their normally open position. Then, in absence of voltage
at motor terminals it will ultimately stop running. Similarly any of the other NC contacts (1, 2 & 3) connected in
series with starter coil if open; it will also stop the motor. These NC contacts are electrically coupled with various
protection relays to stop operation of the motor in different abnormal conditions.

Thermal Overload Protection:

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The thermal over load relay and its function in motor thermal overload protection.
The secondary of the CTs in series with motor supply circuit, are connected with a bimetallic strip of the thermal over
load relay (49). As shown in the figure below, when current through the secondary of any of the CTs, crosses it’s
predetermined values for a predetermined time, the bi-metallic strip is over heated and it deforms which ultimately
causes to operate the relay 49. As soon as the relay 49 is operated, the NC contacts 1 and 2 are opened which de-
energizes the starter coil and hence stop the motor.

Protection against shock

Electric shock: An electric shock is the physiological effect of an electric current through the human body.
When a current exceeding 30 mA passes through a part of a human body, the person concerned is in serious danger if
the current is not interrupted in a very short time.

Protection against direct contact:

Direct contact : A direct contact refers to a person coming into contact with a conductor which is live in normal
circumstances

Protection: (1) Protection by the insulation of live parts

(2) Protection by means of barriers or enclosures
In order to protect users in such circumstances, highly sensitive fast tripping devices, based on the detection of
residual currents to earth (which may or may not be through a human being or animal) are used to disconnect the
power supply automatically, and with sufficient rapidity to prevent injury to, or death by electrocution, of a normally
healthy human being. These devices operate on the principle of differential current measurement, in which any
difference between the current entering a circuit and that leaving it (on a system supplied from an earthed source) be
flowing to earth, either through faulty insulation or through contact of an earthed part, such as a person, with a live
conductor.

Protection against indirect contact:

Protection: In this system all exposed-conductive-parts and extraneous conductive-parts of the installation must be
connected to a common earth electrode.

The neutral point of the supply system is normally earthed at outside the influence area of the installation earth
electrode, but need not be so.

The impedance of the earth-fault loop therefore consists mainly in the two earth electrodes (i.e. the source and
installation electrodes) in series, so that the magnitude of the earth fault current is generally too small to operate
overcurrent relay or fuses, and the use of a residual current operated device is essential.

If the current exceed the pre-defined value of the residual current devices the then tripping mechanism will trip to
disconnect that faulty part.

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Earthing or grounding:
The process of connecting the metallic frame (i.e. non-current carrying part) of electrical equipment or some electrical
part of the system (e.g. neutral point in a star-connected system, one conductor of the secondary of a transformer etc.)
to earth (i.e. soil) is called grounding or earthing.

Advantages or importance of grounding:

The following are the advantages of neutral grounding :
i) Voltages of the healthy phases do not exceed line to ground voltages i.e. they remain nearly constant.
ii) The high voltages due to arcing grounds are eliminated.
iii) The overvoltages due to lightning are discharged to earth.
iv) It provides greater safety to personnel and equipment.
v) It provides improved service reliability.
vi) Operating and maintenance expenditures are reduced.

Possible Questions:
1. What is switchgear? Explain the switchgear equipments.
2. Draw and explain the simple protection scheme with relay and CB.
3. What is differential relay? Explain it.
4. What are the common faults occur in transformer?
5. Explain the construction and operating principle of Buchholz relay for the protection of transformer.
6. Explain the protection against earth fault or leakage of transformer.
7. Explain the protection against overload of transformer.
8. Explain the circulating current scheme protection of transformer.
9. What are the common faults occur in motor?
10. Explain the operating principle of motor starter.
11. Explain the protection against thermal overload of motor.
12. What is electric shock? Explain the protection against direct contact and indirect contact.
13. What is earthing? What are the advantages or importance of earthing?

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