Bus bar Protection - A Review

[A] Types of Power Distribution System Faults

Bolted Faults:

In bolted fault conditions, the fault voltage does not have peak or voltage rise greater than remaining parts
of the system. The fault transient is verified from different peaks of the curve by the control circuit of the
Circuit Breaker.

Arc Fault:
The Arc Fault leads to the operation of the switchgear, the faults energy causing the arc is cleared when
detected by the switchgear.

[B] Design Option in Low Voltage System (LVS)

Insulated Bus
The busbar is insulated by the plastic coating which possess the dielectric properties. Other insulating
materials like epoxy coating, heat shink tubing and insulation tape.

Isolated Bus
The main difference between the insulated and isolated bus is that isolated bus has barriers placed in
between each phase’s bus bar, there is a air gap between the conductor and barrier. The isolated barriers are
manufactured according to the working situation and is certified by the manufacturer.
[C] Comparison of Bare Bus to Insulated/Isolated Bus

Figure(1) The electrical waveform of the insulated/isolated bus.

Figure(2) The electrical waveform of the bare bus.

 [D] Bus Differential Protective Schemes

•Low Impedance Bus Differential Protection [3]

Figure 1. Low Impedance

There is two categories of fault in-zone faults and out zone faults, out-zone faults occurs due to
unbalanced in rush currents, the relays should have high selectivity to different small value of
current, for heavy in zone faults the heavy in rush current is suppressed and fed to the CT
terminals.
 •High Impedance Bus Differential Protection

For High Impedance bus differential protection the relay points are arranged at a common points, the CT
terminals are connected in parallel. In case of the in zone fault, high impedance of the circuit excites the CT
voltage higher than the relay operating voltage. A protective device provide or reduces the voltage to the
safe limit.
References

[1] Rajvanshi, R., & Hawkins, T. (2017). Insulated Bus Bars in Low-Voltage Systems: Reducing
Arc Duration and Energy Emissions. IEEE Industry Applications Magazine, 23(3), 48–53.

[2] Song, S., & Zou, G. (2015). A Novel Busbar Protection Method Based on Polarity Comparison
of Superimposed Current. IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, 30(4), 1914–1922.

[3] Ristanovic, D., Branch, D., Bhatia, N., & Singh, S. (2016). Bus Differential Protection in
Industrial Systems With Generators Connected Directly to the Main Distribution Bus. IEEE
Transactions on Industry Applications, 52(4), 3574–3583.