Abstract
The principal function of circuit breakers (CBs) is to isolate a portion of the power network from the rest of it in a timely manner following an opening command. Any failure in the opening operation of CBs, especially following a fault condition, will almost certainly result in a catastrophic event. Therefore, the issue of failure detection of CBs is essential and has a vital role in power system protection. This paper presents a novel power-based algorithm for failure detection of CBs. The power loss of CBs due to an arcing event increases as the arcing time gets longer. The arcing time of CBs increases with defective operations originating from any failure or malfunction for different reasons. The proposed method uses the power difference between the input and output terminals of CBs to calculate the power loss due to an arcing event, which can then be used to estimate the arcing energy. A trip signal is initiated whenever the estimated arcing energy for a single opening operation reaches a predefined trip level, which shows a failure in CB operation. This predefined trip value is related to the integration of the maximum power capacity of the CB during an opening operation time. Computer simulation studies conducted to analyze the performance of the proposed technique demonstrate that the algorithm is capable of discriminating between normal and abnormal arcing energies and thus identifying malfunctions or failures in the opening operations of CBs.
Highlights
The objectives of a protection system are to detect and locate the fault and initiate a trip signal for the right circuit breaker (CB) to isolate the fault
This paper introduces a protection algorithm for CBs based on the power loss of switching arc incidents
As was mentioned in the introduction, the overcurrent protection logic is not capable of distinguishing between permissible and nonpermissible arcing times and it considers a faulty interruption of the CB like in the 3rd case shown in Figure 5a as a successful operation
Summary
The objectives of a protection system are to detect and locate the fault and initiate a trip signal for the right circuit breaker (CB) to isolate the fault. Typical reasons for malfunctions or failures of CBs include operating mechanism failures; degradation of external insulation; failures due to voltage transients; misapplications; failures in resistors, capacitors, and current transformers; animal interferences; manufacturing or maintenance errors; and failures in the internal dielectric and interrupter [1] In this sense, a comprehensive failure detection technique is needed to detect any failure resulting from any of the above-mentioned causes and to produce a trip signal for upstream CBs to prevent the occurrence of catastrophic consequences in the power system. The method is capable of detecting any malfunction or failure that causes abnormal arcing energy It provides a comprehensive protection scheme for CBs and can be implemented within a real-time framework
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