초록 ▼

A method and apparatus are provided for detecting an arcing fault on a power line carrying a load current. Parameters indicative of power flow and possible fault events on the line, such as voltage and load current, are monitored and analyzed for an arc burst pattern exhibited by arcing faults in a

A method and apparatus are provided for detecting an arcing fault on a power line carrying a load current. Parameters indicative of power flow and possible fault events on the line, such as voltage and load current, are monitored and analyzed for an arc burst pattern exhibited by arcing faults in a power system. These arcing faults are detected by identifying bursts of each half-cycle of the fundamental current. Bursts occurring at or near a voltage peak indicate arcing on that phase. Once a faulted phase line is identified, a comparison of the current and voltage reveals whether the fault is located in a downstream direction of power flow toward customers, or upstream toward a generation station. If the fault is located downstream, the line is de-energized, and if located upstream, the line may remain energized to prevent unnecessary power outages.

대표청구항 ▼

A detector to identify arcing faults occurring on a polyphase power network, comprising: a low-pass filter to filter a load current waveform flowing through each phase of said polyphase power network to produce a low-pass filtered load current waveform with preserved low frequency components; a corr

A detector to identify arcing faults occurring on a polyphase power network, comprising: a low-pass filter to filter a load current waveform flowing through each phase of said polyphase power network to produce a low-pass filtered load current waveform with preserved low frequency components; a correlation device to correlate said low-pass filtered load current waveform with a selected model function, with values that fluctuate as a function of the power system phase voltage, to produce an indicator for each phase of said polyphase power network; and a comparator to compare each indicator with the remaining indicators to determine whether a phase with an arcing fault can be identified and determine the direction of an existing arcing fault based upon said indicators.