4/23/2015 Case study: how peak­to­peak is faster than DFT when CT saturates

Case study: how peak­to­peak is faster than DFT when CT

saturates
Answer ID 2748 | Published 2009­08­20 09:54 AM | Updated 2012­06­07 10:38 AM

As ID387 explains different measuring modes but how does peak to peak measurement provide faster operation when the
is CT saturating ?

Peak­to­peak measurement:

The peak­to­peak measurement principle is selected with the Measurement mode setting using the value "Peak­to­Peak".
It is the fastest measurement mode, in which the measurement quantity is made by calculating the average from the
positive and negative peak values, and then scaling that to RMS value. The DC component is not included. In this
principle, the function block retardation time is short.

In this principle the harmonic frequencies will not be well filtered and therefore this should be used only in cases where the
suppression of harmonics is not important. For example, in (high and instantanous stage) short­circuit protection.

The main advantage is that the peak­to­peak mode allows considerable CT saturation without impairing the performance
of the relay operation.

DFT measurement:

Fundamental (know also as DFT) measusing principle uses software based Fourier filtering for suppressing all harmonics
and DC component. The problem with this principle is that in saturated waveform the fundamental component is smaller
in comparison to unsaturate waveform. Thus, relay will see fault current as smaller.

Case study:
In the following case study is made, where CT saturation is an effect of the fault current and the remanence in the CT.

The impact of saturation also depends on the measuring principle of the protection function; in the worst case the
additional delay in operation due to CT remanence may be in the order of the dc time­constant of the short­circuit current
(in this example, Tp = 50 ms). This is the case when the remanence and the momentary flux density at the time of fault
have the same polarity and the measuring principle is based on full­cycle DFT­measurement. Much faster operation,
despite remanence and saturation, is achieved when the peak­to­peak measuring principle is used.

Figure1. Measuring principles of a high­set overcurrent protection stage at example fault current magnitudes and extreme
remanence. Tp = 50 ms. The time instances t1 and t2 indicate, when the measured current exceeds the setting at different

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4/23/2015 Case study: how peak­to­peak is faster than DFT when CT saturates
measuring principles (peak­to­peak and DFT).

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