Transmission line fault location based on the computation of transient profile contour maps

This paper describes a Laplace-based approach for the generation of transient profile contour maps (TPCMs) of faulted transmission lines, as well as its potential application in fault location. The method to obtain transient profiles makes use of the definition of the transmission line equations in the spatial frequency - temporal frequency domain, the solution of the system in such domain, and its further transformation to the time - space domain using the 2-dimensional inverse numerical Laplace transform. It is shown in this paper that the terminal measurements of a faulted line, in combination with its electrical parameters, can be used as inputs in the transient profiling method to obtain contour maps representing the distribution of transient current and voltage along such line. These contour maps contain very visually detailed information of fault features related to location, duration and impedance.