DESIGN OF EARTH FAULT RELAY

Aim:

To design an earth fault relay for protecting the loads when there is a line to ground or
double line to ground fault. The relay will operate and will save the load whenever there is a
fault near the load.

Introduction:

An earth-fault usually involves a partial a partial breakdown of winding insulation to

earth. The resulting leakage current is considerably less than the short circuit current. The earth-
fault may continue for a long time and cause considerable damage before if ultimately develops
into a short circuit and removed from the system under these circumstances, it is profitable to
employ earth fault relay, which is essentially an over current relay of low setting and operates as
soon as an earth-fault or leak develops. This scheme is used for the winding of the transformer
connected in star where the neutral point is either solidly earthed or earthed through impedance.
The relay used is of high impedance type to meet the scheme stable for external fault

Under healthy condition the resultant current flowing through the secondary grounded
neutral current transformer will be zero. In such a three phase system if one of the three phases
gets grounded or earthed then unbalancing of current occurs, the vector sum of all the three
phases will have certain value. If this value exceeds the set value indicated on the relay, then the
relay actuates and trips the main circuit.

The earth fault can also be measured by connecting a current transformer in the wire
connecting the neutral of the star point to the ground. If there is and earth fault then the current in
this ct will be increased. The output signal from the current transformer is given to the
comparator. From the comparator the digital output is given to the microcontroller. The
controller will operate the relay then based upon the data given by the comparator.
Advantages:

1. High accuracy (microprocessor based)

2. Fault and trip Led indication
3. Wide range of current settings
4. Alarm facility

Applications:

1. Used to protect the transformer in industries

2. Used for protection of induction motors from internal and external faults

SOFTWARE TOOLS USED:

1. Embedded C programming language

2. KEIL IDE for writing the program for micro controller

3. PROLOAD for dumping

4. ORCAD to draw the schematic diagram

HARDWARE USED:

1. AT89s52 Micro Controller

2. Power supply

3. LCD Display

4. Comparator

5. Relay.

6. Current transformer.
BLOCK DIAGRAM: