Detection of broken conductors using the positional protection technique

This paper describes the application of the positional protection technique to detect a broken conductor in a distribution system. A specially designed transient capture unit is used to extract the fault generated high frequency voltage transient signals from the distribution line system. The fault could either be a short circuit on the feeder or a broken conductor. The travelling times of these transients are used to determine the position of the fault and to initiate circuit breaker operation. The scheme is insensitive to the type of fault any subsequent fault resistance to ground, the inception angle at the time of break and system source configuration. Studies show that the proposed technique is able to offer high speed in detecting a broken conductor or a short circuit and very high accuracy in fault location.