2008 International Workshop on Modelling, Simulation and Optimization

A new optimization algorithm for grounding grid fault diagnosis

QI-RONG QIU

PENG WANG

School of Mathematics and Physics

North China Electric Power University, 102206,
Beijing, China
QQIR@ncepu.edu.cn

School of Mathematics and Physics

North China Electric Power University, 102206,
Beijing, China
lovewangpeng_2004@126.com
excavation and restoration of the grounding grid, which is now
being paid more and more attention by many scholars.
In reference [1], based on Tellegon theorem, the author
exchanges the voltage and current of the original grounding grid
(designed value) and the actual grounding grid (after being rust),
establishes equations by measuring the resistance between
accessible nodes, and obtains the actual resistance of the
grounding grids. However, such resistance is small, and the drop
wires own resistance can not be ignored, so it will be difficult to
obtain precise measurement results, thus affects the result of the
diagnosis.
In references [2-5], the authors use parameter recognition
method; takes the grounding grids incremental resistance as
parameter to establish the fault diagnosis equation, then uses the
simplex method to obtain the solution of the lowest loss of
energy. In this method, only the measurement of the voltage
between nodes is needed but not that of the resistance. The
amount of the equations used is relatively small and the
equations do not do linear processing, so the results out of this
method have a big error.
In reference [6], based on reference [3-4] the author
establishes an improved method that shifts the positions of the
exciters among the accessible nodes and measures as much as
possible for each excitation. In this way, the limited nodes are
made full use of and the amount of the equations is remarkably
increased. Beside, iterative method is applied to resolve the
nonlinear problem. Then, the result of this method is much closer
to the actual situation.

Abstract
The grounding grid is commonly installed in the substation.
When its damaged, restoring and improving work not only
affects the production, but also it is difficult to carry it out. In
this paper, by using integrated translation and iterative method,
we establish a new optimization model of quadratic
programming with constraints. By solving the model, we can
obtain the resistance of each branch. After comparing with the
initial value, we know more precisely the corrosion of the
grounding grid than ever. The results of the calculations, the
measurements in practical examples show that the proposed
method is feasible.

Introduction
In order to ensure the stable operation of electric power
system and the safety of operators and the power apparatus, the
electrical equipment in the power plants and substations are
required to have reliable grounding. There are strict
requirements for the grounding resistance, step voltage; contract
potential in the <<Specifications of Electrical Installations
Grounding Design>>.Grounding grid is universally installed in
the substations, much of which is buried under cement. As to a
grounding grid which has been running for many years, the
electrochemical corrosion in the corrosive environment of the
soil discharge when the equipment operating makes the crosssectional area of grounding reduced, or even ruptured, causing
adverse performance of grounding, which can not meet the
thermal stability requirement. Then the circuit current will burn
the grounding grid, makes the substation in high potential
difference, then destroys other main equipment, and even
endangers the operators safety [1]. Because of all these, its
very hard and difficult to restore and improve the grounding
grid, and also enormous cost will be needed. However, when the
actual detection of the state of the grounding grid is to be
undertaken, the yard and ground of the substation must be
greatly destroyed and it is still difficult to guarantee the accuracy
of detection. This has always been the thorny problem for the
power system. Therefore, it is very significant to do targeted

978-0-7695-3484-8/08 $25.00 2008 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/WMSO.2008.108

The principle of algorithm

By using the method of shifting the positions of the exciters
among the accessible nodes and measuring as much as possible
for each excitation, we can increase the number of equations, but
the number of effective equations may not increase much.
Analysis shows that the required number of nodes is not only
related to the distribution of these nodes, but also to the
resistance of the branches. When the grounding grid has been
used for many years, its resistance will be unknown. Its not a
reliable way to use the initial value to design the equation. To

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increase the number of independent equations by adding the

nodes also meets difficulty--it is difficult to increase the nodes
number on the site. Reference 6] uses the method of the minimal
norm of the least squares to solve the equations. Its also
questionable to calculate the resistance value accurately. In this
paper, based on reference [6], well establish a new optimization
model by using the method of shifting the positions of the
exciters among the accessible nodes and measuring for each
excitation.
A grounding grid has n nodes, B branches, neglecting
each branchs inductance and capacitance. According to the
circuit principle, we obtain the notes equation
(1)
U j = G 1 J j

Suppose that = { k 1 , k 2 , " , k K } is the node

j

collection, U ks ,e is the voltage measurement of the node

U kjs ,e = U kjs ,e U kjs ,0

n

U kjs ,e [ M ki s, j xi ], s = 1, 2," k

is the node voltage vector in the

i=1

namely asks for the minimum value of formula (9)

(2)

j =1

s.t.

i, j
keji

xi U

j
keji

i =1

0 xi 0 + xi 1/ Ri , i = 1, 2," , n

(10)

In order to use the above model to solution the question, the

iterative method is used, and its computation processes are as
follows:
(1) By shifting the positions of the current exciters within the

( J = AR U + AI = AI )

U 0j = G 1 J j = G 1 AI j

(9)
2

min f (x1 , x2 ," , xn ) =

U is

U 0j can be calculated by

xi U

j
0

using the following equations

1
0

i =1

j
ks , e

0 xi 0 + xi 1/ Ri , i = 1, 2," , n

Where U and I are independent voltage vector and

independent current vector respectively in the j excitation. R0

j =1

2
i, j
ks

Synthesizes the above analysis, we obtain the following

optimization model by using the method of rotating the excitation
positions, and multiple measurements on each excitation.

the initial value of each node voltage.

As we know, when the grounding grid corrodes, the resistance

will increase, therefore

under the j excitation. A is incidence matrix. According to the

circuit knowledge, we have

is the initial resistance (design value) before cauterization,

the conductance matrix for the node. J is the current vector

Ukjs ,e Mkis, j xi is as small as possible,

The required value

j excitation. G is

J j = AR 1U j + AI j

(8)

i =1

G = A diag (1. / R) AT
Where U

ks in

the j excitation.

(3)

touchable nodes and measuring the voltages for each excitation, we

Let

obtain the

xi = 1/ Ri , i = 1, 2," , n

(2) Set

x1 0 " 0

0 x2 " 0
G=
# # % #

0 0 0 xn
The formula (1) can be rewritten as
A G A U j = J j = A Is j

j
U keji
,e .

(0)
T = 0, x (0)
j = 1/ R j .

(3) Computerize

(4)

i, j
j
j
j
M keji
,T , U keji ,T = U keji ,e U keji ,T

(4) We find the solution of quadratic programming with

constraints (10) x
(5) if

(5)

When the resistance changes, we get

A (G + Gx ) A (U j + U j ) = A Is j

i =1

i =1

< then

else

R j = 1/ ( x (jT ) + x (jT ) ), j = 1, 2," , n

(6)

The variable quantity of voltage U and x have the

following relations
A Gx A U j + A G A U j + A Gx A U j = 0
After delete the square term, we have
U j ( A G A) 1 Ai Ai U j xi = M i , j xi

(T )

(T )

x (jT +1) = x (jT ) + x (jT ) T T + 1

turn to2

The simulation results

(7)

Figure 1 is a 4 4 grounding grid, using formula (11) to

generate a group of resistance randomly.
R ( 0 ) = 8 + 0 .2 r a n d , ( k = 1, 2 , " , 2 4 ) (11)
k

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R1

11

12

R11

15

R24

14

R9

R21

R18

R10

R23

R8

Table 2
8

R6

R20

10

branches associated with these nodes are considered as one

branch.

R22

R17

R7

R15
13

R5

R3

R19

R4

R14
9

R2

R16

R13
5

R12

16

Figure 1
Suppose that the accessible nodes are 456812then
the compute results is shown in table 1.

Table 1

R (0)

R (1)

R1

8.19

8.19

Computer
result
8.1901

R2

8.0462

8.0462

8.0463

R3

8.1214

8.1214

8.1214

R4

8.0972

8.0972

8.0972

R5

8.1783

24.076

24.072

R6

8.1524

8.1524

8.1526

R7

8.0913

8.0913

8.0913

R8

8.0037

8.0037

8.0041

The range of max relative error

0~0.50%
0.5%~1%
1.00%~1.50%
1.50%~2.00%
2.00%~5.00%
5.00%~10.00%
Bigger than10.00%

R9

8.1643

8.1643

8.1644

R10

8.0889

8.0889

8.089

R11

8.1231

8.1231

8.1231

R12

8.1584

8.1584

8.1585

R13

8.1844

8.1844

8.1844

R14

8.1476

8.1476

8.1478

R15

8.0353

8.0353

8.0353

R16

8.0811

8.0811

8.0811

R17

8.1871

8.1871

8.1916

R18

8.1834

8.1834

8.184

R19

8.0821

8.0821

8.0821

R20

8.1787

8.1787

8.1789

R21

8.0116

8.0116

8.1546

R22

8.0706

8.0706

8.0706

R23

8.1626

8.1626

8.1626

R24

8.002

8.002

8.0021

Suppose
R 7( 1 ) = 8 3 . 4 0 4 , R 9( 1 ) = 3 2 . 7 6 7 , ,

R 1( 81 ) = 2 2 . 8 9 5 , R 2( 11 ) = 5 6 . 0 1 8
and the reference node is no.1, and the exciting current is 20A .
After randomly generating 500 groups of nodes (the number of
accessible node is 5) the calculation results are shown in table
3.
Table 3
number
364
30
17
12
18
16
18

percentage
77.80%
6.00%
3.40%
2.40%
3.60%
3.20%
3.60%

The above two simulation results show that when there is only
one resistance changing, a high accuracy can be got in this
method. When a large number of the resistances change, the
maximum resistance error between the calculation results and
the practical results limited in 5% is 93.20%. Considering the
maximums resistance errors, we know that the resistance value
which has big difference basically happens among the branches
of the large resistance. In order to improve the computation
accuracy increasing the accessible node is needed .

Conclusion
In this paper, using translation and iterative method, we
establish a new optimization model of quadratic programming
with constraints. The method of shifting the positions of the
exciters among the accessible nodes and measuring for each
excitation is also used. So we can calculate the resistance and
determine the extent of grounding grids corrosion accurately.

Randomly generating 500 groups of nodes (the number of

accessible node is 5) the calculation result is shown in table 2.
(Note: if the node 4, 13, 16 are not the accessible nodesthe two

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Results of calculation, measurement on practical examples show

that the proposed method is feasible.

[4] Xin-hua Xiao .Hua LiuXian-lu Chen et alAnalysis of theory

and method about the corrosion as well as the broken point of the
grounding grid [J] Journal of Chongqing University 2001, 24
(3):72-75
[5] Xiao-ling Zhang, Xian-lu Chen.The technique of the optimization
applied in the grounding grids failure diagnosis [J] High
VoltageEngineering, Vol.26 (4) 64-66, Aug 2000.
[6]Jian Liu, Jian-xin Wang, Sen Wang, An improved algorithm of
corrosion diagnosis for grounding grids &its evaluation, Proceedings
of the CSEE, 2005, Vol.25 No.3, 71-77.Feb 2005.
[7] Dawalibi F PElectromagnetic fields generated by overhead and
buried short conductors Part 2-Ground conductor [J] IEEE Trans.
onPower---Delivery,1986,PWRD-1:112-119.

References
[1] Jian Liu, Jian-Xin Wang, Sen Wang, A corrosion dlagnosis
approach for grounding grids based on tabu search algorithm
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Machine Learning
and Cybernetics, Dalian, 13-16 August 2006
[2] Jun Hu, Rong Zhang .Jin-liang He etal Novel method of
corrosion diagnosis for grounding grid[C] in Proceedings of
Power Con.2000, 2000, 3:1365-1370.
[3]Xiao-ling Zhang Qing-yang HuangFault diagnosis og grounding
grid of electric power plants and substations [J] Proceedings of the
EPSA 2002, 14 (1):48-51

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