A High-Efficiency Method to Determine Parameters of High Impedance Arc Fault Models

Abstract

Numerical modeling of the high impedance arc fault (HIAF) is essential to supplementing the deficiency of real-world fault cases and extending the fault scenarios. Setting parameters of the model correctly is the basis to reproduce practical fault waveforms. According to the literature, the parameters of HIAF models are mostly determined manually and subjectively. The existing automatic methods of parameter determination are mostly used in the modeling of other types of arcs (such as DC arcs and circuit breaker arcs), which do not consider the connections with power networks. It will be time-consuming if directly applying these methods to the HIAF model with the connection of a power network. In this paper, after introducing the unique requirements in simulating the nonlinearity of HIAFs, a high-efficiency parameter determination method is proposed for HIAF models. The method is realized by interfacing the optimizer programmed in Python with the HIAF model and power network established in PSCAD. In this process, a combination of pulse controllers is designed and certain configurations are proposed, so that the parameter determination procedure can be significantly simplified. Case studies show that, by combining the proposed high-efficiency method with our previously proposed DIST-C HIAF model, fitting accuracy and efficiency can be guaranteed at the same time. The time for parameter determination of a HIAF model is only within minutes, decreasing hundreds of times and independent of the length of desired waveforms.