Prediction of amplitude of fault generated travelling wave in medium-voltage grids for fault type classification

• Type of fault can be classified using non-zero travelling wave modal components. • Fault classification method based on voltage wavefront amplitude was developed. • Easy method of calculating the amplitude of fault travelling wave was developed. This paper proposes a new solution for the classification of short-circuits in medium-voltage distribution grids. The solution requires the measurements of the phase voltages at the time of the short-circuit and the voltage amplitudes of the short-circuit wave resulting from the fault. The values of the voltage before the short-circuit are used to calculate the expected values of the short-circuit wave amplitudes for the different types of short circuits. These calculations are based on an analysis of the charge flow between the capacitances of the power line due to the disturbance. The short-time matrix pencil method was used to detect the incoming short-circuit waves. Tests of the algorithm were carried out on the IEEE 34-bus Feeder model, taking into account the influence of voltage sensors on the measured signal values. The classification algorithm uses only non-zero components due to their relatively low attenuation. Despite that, it achieves high performance in the classification of single- and two-phase short-circuits.