Smart technique for calculating fault current model parameters using short circuit current measurements

Precise evaluation of fault current model parameters is an important issue in protection and automation systems. These parameters play a crucial role in selecting protective relay settings, detecting, and compensating saturated CT waveforms, calculating AC and DC components, estimating the sub-transient and transient time periods for the short-circuit current, determining fault locations, and controlling a fault interruption to avoid very fast transients that arise from switching. A new strategy for calculating the fault parameters using short-circuit current model is presented. The short-circuit current data is used to estimate fault inception angle, decay time constant, power system angle and maximum symmetrical AC fault current. The difference concept can be utilized to obtain precise mathematical formulas for evaluating the parameters of the fault current model. This is for efficient implementation of multiple functions that include digital protective relay, fault locator, digital filter, CT saturation detector and compensator. The strategy can be applied offline or in real-time. To verify the developed methodology, comprehensive numerical studies on a power system with real parameters data are presented. The power system is simulated using the Alternative Transient Program (ATP) tool. The algorithm is processed using MATLAB© software application. It is examined under variable operating and fault conditions for the system. The quantitative findings indicate that the method has high feasibility, and can achieve reliability, accuracy, and speed in estimating fault current parameters. The results also demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, as well as its robustness with respect to changes in system parameters. Its performance is sustainable as the data window moves, and it is immune to different fault and operational conditions. A key highlight of the proposed approach is the ability to perform many tasks of computer applications in power systems using the accurate calculated parameters for the fault current model.