DESIGN OF A FAULT LOCATOR FOR POWER TRANSMISSION LINES

A complete software design of a fault locator for power transmission lines is presented. The software, which can be directly applied in real systems, uses the waveforms from current and voltage transformers at the near end of the line. The input current and voltage waveforms are processed to extract their fundamental components. The fault location algorithm is based on the fundainental frequency components from the near end, and from the remote end it only requires the source impedance. The electromagnetic transient program (EMTP) is used to simulate faults on an Iranian 400kv transmission line in order to test the accuracy of the fault locator under different operating and fault conditions. In the simulation study, first the errors introduced by different signal processing methods is evaluated. Then, the accuracy of the fault location for different fault positions and system operating conditions is investigated. It is shown the overall error for most cases is less than 2% of the line length.