Automating Transmission-Line Fault Root Cause Analysis

This research demonstrates that transmission-line faults can be classified automatically according to their underlying cause, and lays a foundation for operational classification of transmission-line faults in system control centers. The transmission-line fault waveforms are characterized by instantaneous symmetrical component analysis to describe the transient and steady-state fault conditions. Using a large fault record and waveform database, classification features based on the waveform and external environmental characteristics have been identified to develop single-nearest-neighbor classifiers that identify the underlying cause of transmission-line faults, and good classification accuracy has been achieved.