2014 IEEE International Conference Power & Energy (PECON)

Accurate Phase to Phase Fault Resistance Calculation

Using Two Terminal Data
Muhd Hafizi Bin Idris, Surya Hardi, Mohd Zamri Hasan, Yazhar Yatim & Syafruddin Hasan
School of Electrical System Engineering
University Malaysia Perlis
Arau, Malaysia
hafiziidris@unimap.edu.my
local substation [4]. Two-terminal algorithm uses date from
both local and remote substations [1,5]. Two-terminal data
algorithm is more accurate than one-terminal data algorithm
because of more data it uses to locate the fault [6]. Low speed
communication channel can be used to transmit the data
between local and remote substations or to a main substation.

Abstract Faults can occurred at the transmission line due to

lightning strike, broken conductor, cross arm or tower falls,
danger tree, crane or animal encroachment, polluted insulator
etc. Each type of fault will represents a fault resistance value.
Fault resistance will affects the accuracy of protection relays in
fault location and fault zone detection. Phase to phase fault is one
type of unsymmetrical fault at the transmission line. This paper
represents the accurate way to calculate the actual phase to phase
fault resistance value by using data from both local and remote
substations. From the finding, the actual fault resistance can be
represented by fault resistance as seen from local substation in
parallel with the fault resistance as seen from remote substation.
To prove the finding, simulation has been carried out and the
results show the validity of the proposed theory.

In this paper, the authors present an accurate phase to

phase fault resistance calculation using two-terminal data. By
knowing the accurate value of fault resistance, the value can
be used to accurately calculate the fault location. The fault
impedance is assumed to be purely resistance [7].
II. THEORIES OF PHASE TO PHASE FAULT

Keywords phase to phase; two-terminal; fault resistance;

fault location

Fig. 1 shows a case of phase to phase fault between red

and yellow phases. There is a contact between red and yellow
phase lines. This object represents a resistance value or
typically called as fault resistance, RF. The parameters for
phase to phase fault are shown in Table I.

I. INTRODUCTION
Faults occurrence at transmission line can be due to many
circumstances such as tree or crane encroachment, lightning
strike, insulation failure, instrument transformer explosion,
animal intervention, and many others [1]. Fault can be
classified as symmetrical and unsymmetrical faults. Three
phase fault is the only symmetrical fault. Single phase to
ground fault, phase to phase fault, double phase to ground
fault and three phase to ground fault are unsymmetrical faults
[2].

Fig. 1. Phase to phase fault condition

TABLE I
PHASE TO PHASE FAULT PARAMETERS

When a fault occurred at the transmission line,

maintenance peoples have to locate the fault by using the fault
location given by the fault recorder or numerical protection
relay. The location given by this devices sometimes not very
accurate and making it difficult to find the correct location of
the fault. This is due to many factors such as current
transformer and voltage transformer errors, line charging
current, high fault resistance and many other factors. Fault
resistance has a very great effect on the accuracy of fault
location as has been proved in [3]. It will make the fault
location becomes very inaccurate when the algorithm used to
calculate the fault location does not consider its effects. A
small error in fault location may similar to several kilometers
at the actual transmission line.

No.
1
2
3
4
5
6

There are 2 categories of fault location algorithm which

are one-terminal and two-terminal algorithms. One-terminal
algorithm uses data from one substation only which is from

7
8

This work was supported by Higher Education Ministry of Malaysia and

Universiti Malaysia Perlis through Research Acculturation Grant Scheme
(RAGS, Project code: 9018-00020)

978-1-4799-7297-5/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

37

Parameters
Phase to ground voltage of red
phase from local substation.
Phase to ground voltage of yellow
phase from local substation
Phase current of red phase from
local substation
Phase to ground voltage of red
phase from remote substation
Phase to ground voltage of yellow
phase from remote substation
Phase current of red phase from
remote substation
Line impedance
Fault location

Symbols
VRA

Unit
kV

VYA

kV

IRA

VRB

kV

VYB

kV

IRB

ZL
m

Per unit

2014 IEEE International Conference Power & Energy (PECON)

A. Equations seen from local substation

connected in parallel as depicted by Fig. 4. By using (7), fault

resistance, RF can be directly calculated using simple parallel
connection formula.

The voltage difference between red and yellow phase lines is,
RF

RF

(2)

As seen from Fig. 4 (b), the phase current from each

substation will flow and circulate through fault resistance seen
by each side respectively. Simulation has been carried out to
prove the equivalent circuit of parallel connection to represent
the fault resistance, RF which is discussed in the next section.

Arranging for RF,

RF

RF is then replaced with RFA to show that the fault resistance is

seen from local substation as depicted by Fig. 2.
RFA = RF

R FA xR FB R FA

(1)

R FB

(7)

(3)

Fig. 4. Fault resistance, RF represented by an equivalent parallel connection of

fault resistances seen from both substations.

III. MODELING USING MATLAB SIMULINK

Table II shows the parameters used for modeling the
source, transmission line and phase to phase fault. For this
model, it was assumed that the positive and zero sequence
capacitances of the transmission line are very small because of
the transmission line is short.
Fig. 5 shows the overall simulation model developed for
this research. It can be seen that there are two blocks at the
right side of Fig. 5 used to calculate the fault resistances seen
from each substation. Fault Resistance Calculation A block is
used to calculate the fault resistance seen from local
substation, RFA while Fault Resistance Calculation B block is
used to calculate the fault resistance seen from remote
substation, RFB. The values of RFA and RFB then will be used to
calculate the fault resistance value, RF. In this simulation, the
fault location m from local substation is assumed to be known
before the simulation is carried out to get the results of fault
resistance.

Fig. 2. Phase to phase fault as seen from local substation.

B. Equations seen from remote substation

The voltage difference between red and yellow phase lines is,
RF

(4)

Arranging for RF,

RF

(5)

RF is then replaced with RFB to show that the fault resistance is

seen from remote substation as depicted by Fig. 3.
RFB = RF

(6)

TABLE II
SOURCE, TRANSMISSION LINE AND FAULT PARAMETERS.
Parameters

Value

Unit

Source
Voltage
132
Phase angle of phase A
0
Nominal frequency
50
3 phase short circuit MVA
1044
X/R ratio
1
Transmission Line
Line length
47
Positive sequence resistance
0.045531917
Zero sequence resistance
0.151489359
Positive sequence inductance
0.0006176566
Zero sequence inductance
0.001533982
Positive sequence capacitance
1e-9
Zero sequence capacitance
1e-9
Fault
Fault resistance
2, 10
Fault location
5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35,
40, 45

Fig. 3. Phase to phase fault as seen from remote substation.

C. Parallel connection of fault resistances seen by both

substations
If we look at the fault resistance seen from local substation
RFA and the fault resistance seen from remote substation RFB,
it can be said that the actual fault resistance value, RF can be
represented by fault resistances seen from both substations

38

kV
degree
Hz
MVA
km
/ km
/ km
H / km
H / km
F / km
F / km

km

2014 IEEE International Conference Power & Energy (PECON)

Fig. 5. Overall simulation model

%Error

The function of Analog Low Pass Filter block is to filter

any harmonic component which might appear in the voltage
and current signals and only fundamental component of the
signals will be passed through for calculation in the next steps.
The function of Fourier Analysis block is to extract the
magnitude and phase angle of voltage and current signals. The
Degree to radian block is used to convert the phase angle from
degree to radian for calculation purpose.

Calculated R F

Actual R F Actual R F x100 (8)

The simulation was carried out for two conditions which

are for fault resistance RF = 2 and RF = 10 . For each fault
resistance value, fault location was varied from 5 km until 45
km from local substation. Table III and Table IV represent the
results for RF = 2 and RF = 10 respectively. Fig. 6 and
Fig. 7 show the plot of calculated and actual fault resistances
for the results from Table III and Table IV respectively.
From the results, it can be proved that the calculated RF
for each fault location (in km) is almost similar to actual fault
resistance by a small error. From both tables also, it can be
seen that even though the fault location was varied, the
calculated RF is still almost similar to actual fault resistance
and this proved the theory which has been explained in section
II.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

This section represents the results to prove that the fault
resistance, RF can be determined by calculating the equivalent
resistance of parallel connection between fault resistance seen
from local substation, RFA and fault resistance seen from
remote substation, RFB. The error between calculated RF and
actual fault resistance is determined using (8).

TABLE III
SIMULATION RESULTS FOR RF = 2 WITH VARIED FAULT LOCATION
Fault location from local
substation
RFA ()
RFB ()
Calculated RF ()
% Error

5 km

10 km

15 km

20 km

25 km

30 km

35 km

40 km

45 km

3.36
5.048
2.017
0.85

3.42
4.731
1.985
0.75

3.619
4.436
1.993
0.35

3.863
4.161
2.003
0.15

4.07
3.929
1.999
0.05

4.326
3.728
2.002
0.1

4.607
3.46
1.976
1.2

4.922
3.304
1.977
1.15

5.264
3.336
2.042
2.1

TABLE IV
SIMULATION RESULTS FOR RF = 10 WITH VARIED FAULT LOCATION
Fault location from
local substation
RFA ()
RFB ()
Calculated RF ()
% Error

5 km

10 km

15 km

20 km

25 km

30 km

35 km

40 km

45 km

16.58
25.17
9.996
0.04

17.26
23.65
9.978
0.22

18.26
22.13
10.005
0.05

19.22
20.84
9.999
0.01

20.35
19.66
10
0

21.61
18.6
9.996
0.04

22.96
17.73
10.004
0.04

24.55
16.81
9.978
0.22

26.34
15.76
9.86
1.4

39

2014 IEEE International Conference Power & Energy (PECON)

(2) and (5). Then by using (7), the actual fault resistance can
be estimated by calculating the equivalent fault resistance of
parallel connection between those two fault resistances
calculated earlier. The results proved that the calculated fault
resistance is almost similar to actual fault resistance by small
error and the different fault locations can be said that do not
influence the fault resistance calculation. Fault resistance
estimation in transmission line fault analysis is very important
because it has a great effect on the accuracy of fault location.
By accurately estimates the fault resistance, compensation can
be made to fault location algorithm thus accurate fault location
can be gained.

Simulation Results for RF = 2 with Varied Fault Location

6
5.048

Fault Resistance ()

4.731

4.436

4
3.619

3.42

3.36

4.326
4.161 4.07
3.863 3.929 3.728

4.607

3.46

4.922

5.264

3.304 3.336

RFA

RFB
Calculated RF

Actual RF

0
5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

VI. REFERENCES

Fault location from local substation (km)

Fig. 6. Simulation results for RF = 2 with varied fault location

[1]
Simulation Results for RF = 10 with Varied Fault Location
30
25.17

Fault Resistance ()

25

26.34
23.65

22.13

20
16.58 17.26

15

18.26

21.61
20.84 20.35
19.22 19.66 18.6

22.96
17.73

[2]
[3]

24.55

16.81

15.76

[4]

RFA

10

RFB
Calculated RF

Actual RF

[5]

0
5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Fault location from local substation (km)

[6]

Fig. 7. Simulation results for RF = 10 with varied fault location

[7]

V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents the theory developed to calculate fault
resistance value for phase to phase fault. First the fault
resistances seen from both substations will be calculated using

40

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