Wavelet and Travelling Wave Based DC Cable Fault

Localization in MTDC
Zhai Jianyang#, Ding Yifeng#, Xu Bichuan#, Li Yawen#
#
School of Electric Engineering, Wuhan University
Wuhan, Hubei, China
1
673772592@qq.com
2
343166584@qq.com
3
xubichuan123@foxmail.com
4
lyw911008@126.com

AbstractMulti-terminal DC cable fault should be taken
seriously due to several important reasons, which is a relatively
new and challenging field of research. In this paper a method
combining wavelet energy calculation with travelling wave is
proposed to precisely localize the fault. By the wavelet energy
calculation we can identify the type of fault and find on which
line the fault occurs. To more accurately localize the fault, we
resort to travelling wave, considering the characteristic of wave
speed that its variant along with the fault distance. The
simulation shows that this method has great effects on improving
the accuracy of localizing faults.
KeywordsMTDC cable faults; wavelet energy; wave speed;
accuracy
I. INTRODUCTION
IN recent years VSC-based Multi-Terminal DC (MTDC) is
attracting more and more attention because of its several
outstanding merits such as the economical efficiency and
flexibility. And is taking on enormous application potential in
many fields of research: urban AC and DC hybrid power
supply[1], offshore wind farms[2], HVDC distribution
system[3] etc.
When a fault occurs in MTDC its essential to detect and
locate the fault rapidly, making sure that the non-fault section
can operate normally, while the two-terminal HVDC line
must be cut off immediately. As a result the research of fault
analysis in MTDC is more complex and challenging.
Although VSC can handle grid-side AC disturbances, its
vulnerable to the faults on DC side due to the over-currents
flowing through freewheel diodes[4] and limit of circuit
breakers, for example the DC cable short-cuts and DC cable
grounding faults. Now cable has been the main component in
DC transmission system, but faults do occur more frequently
in DC cables than other parts of the system. Considering the
two factors mentioned above, the DC cable fault diagnose
method should be thoroughly studied and developed, which is
still fairly new and immature to research.
A typical three-terminal MTDC is used for DC cable faults
analysis in this article. DC cable faults mainly include four
different kinds: positive line to ground, negative line to
ground, positive line to negative line, positive line to negative
line to ground. Then a DC cable detection and location
method is proposed that combines wavelet analysis with
travelling wave. This method can detect what type the fault
occurred is belonged to and locate where the fault is. We
make some simulation to verify this method.
II. SIMULATION MODEL
Figure 1 demonstrates the simulation model of a three-
terminal MTDC with the 100kV DC cable transmission lines
in MATLAB/SIMULINK.

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 Fig 1. Schematic MTDC model in SIMULINK

There are two sending ends (Converter Station 1 and 3) and
one receiving end (Converter 2), with the nominal capacity of
each is 100MVA, 200 MVA and 300 MVA respectively.
Meanwhile the lengths of the three cables are 75km, 150km
and 100km. Here 230kV and 100MVA are used for base
voltage and base power for the calculation of p.u.
measurement, which are also the nominal voltage and
capacity on the AC side. A circuit breaker is employed to
simulate the cable faults including the grounding faults and
line to line faults. For convenience, the numerous parameters
Where (t ) is defined as scaling function, k is the
sampling number, j is any scale that is settled, a j (k ) is the
approximation coefficients to the original signal, d j (k ) is the
detail coefficients, which describes the high frequency.
B. Wavelet Energy Calculation
Firstly, based on the Parseval Theorem, the concept of
wavelet energy can be interpreted as this:

of the MTDC system are listed after the whole article as an Ef = a0 (k )

2
+ d j (k )
2
(2)
k j = k =
appendix.
I. J
E f = E a0 + E d j
II. j =1

With
III. WAVELET ANALYSIS Ea0 = a0 (k ), a0 (k ) = a0
2
2
A. Brief Introduction To Wavelet 2
Wavelet can localize both frequency and time, so its Ed j = d j (k ), d j (k ) = d j
2
sensitive to the sharp changes of signals and can localize their Considering that the main features of faults are within the
occurrence [5]. Usually a group of wavelets are needed for the high frequencies, so here we define the energy as the sum
wavelet analysis, and this group of wavelet functions are of the square of all the 5th level detailed coefficients using
generated from a so-called mother wavelet, which is a db4.The simulation steps are as follows (take line 1 for
chosen prototype wavelet, by scaling and translating. example).
In order to diagnose different kinds of faults on the DC side, a) Store both the positive and negative line DC current
the various frequency features of faults should be extracted, values into a mat file.
so we use the wavelet decomposition and multi-resolution b) Use db4 as mother wavelet and decompose the
analysis (MRA). In MRA, the original signal is decomposed positive line DC to get the 5th level detailed coefficients. Do
into several different scale of resolution over dilated and the same for negative line DC current.
translated wavelets [6]. The decomposition of f (t ) can be c) Calculate the sum of the square of those positive and
expressed as below negative line coefficients respectively, then name the two
j 1
values as Ep1 and En1.
f (t ) = a j (k ) (t k ) + d j (k )2 j /2 (2 j t k )
So they are the positive and negative line energy of line
k k j =0
(1) 1.Operate the above steps for line 2 and 3 to get Ep2, En2,
Ep3 and En3.These energies are compared and a diagnose tree

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is sorted out (Figure 2). Due to the limit of space, masses of
data cant be listed here, consequently only the diagnose tree
is supplied. In this figure, 2Fpng means a positive to
negative to ground fault occurs in line 2, and so on.
IV. FURTHER LOCALIZATION
A. Travelling Wave Method
By the method of wavelet energy we would detect in which
line what fault has occurred. Then we can resort to travelling
wave to precisely localize the fault on the line. Its obvious
that the accuracy of measurement rely on the wave head
identification and the speed of travelling wave.
Because of the development of singular point technologies,
distinguishing the wave head is being more accurate.
However the fact that wave speed is variant is often neglected,
which may leads to great errors.
end is defined as the arriving time of the highest frequency
component that is able to arrive [8].And this frequency is
related to the fault distance and the resolution of wave head
detecting device. Under the same appropriate resolution, we
can view the wave speed as a function of fault distance.
C. Simulation Algorithm
In the above simulation model of MTDC, the three
transmission cables have a common end. For any line where
the fault happens, let the full line length be L and the fault
distance to the Rectifier side (or Inverter side) be L f .If the
fault occurs at t , the Rectifier side (or the Inverter side) and
the common end detect the wave head at t f and tc ,we can
easily obtain the following equations.
X f = v f (t f t )

B. Wave Speed Relates To Fault Distance L X f = vc (tc t )

Since transmission lines are usually very long to ignore
the attention and distortion during the electromagnetic wave
energy propagation, here the distribution model of cable is
adopted for mathematical derivation.
Where f and c are expressed as v f = f ( X f ) and
vc = f ( L X f ) respectively. But these equations are not easy
to solve, so we explore another way. Plenty of simulation is
operated to get the different wave travelling time that
correspond to different fault distance, then through
interpolation the relatively detailed mathematical relation
between fault distance and travelling time is built.
So the above equations are rewritten as below
X f = f (t f t )
L X f = f (tc t )

Draw the two X f t curves then the cross is the solution.

We use a 500km transmission cable line for simulation and
the results are
TABLE I

THE LOCALIZING RESULTS (UNIT: KM)

Measurement 74.05 145.22 230.08 378.23 412.94 461.77

True value 74 145 230 378 413 462
Error 0.07% 0.15% 0.03% 0.06% 0.01% 0.05%

Fig. 2. The diagnose tree The simulation results demonstrate that this method is quite
effective to improve the accuracy of fault further localization.
According to electromagnetic wave theory, there is
( ) as in the propagation coefficient
( ) = ( ) + j ( ) , representing the phase shifting at V. CONCLUSION
certain frequency. The cable parameter is frequency In this paper we try to explore a relatively complete
dependent, causing the propagation velocity to vary method to precisely localize the DC cable faults. By the
wavelet energy calculating we can find the type of faults and
along with the different frequency components,
on which line the faults occur, then the travelling method is
employed to locate the fault exactly on the fault line
which can be expressed as s = [7]
( ) considering the feature that wave speed is variant and related
to fault distance. Results show that accuracy has been
This illustrates that the higher the frequency, the faster the
obviously improved.
velocity. The primary time when the fault wave reaches an

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 However, its supposed to be noticed that the variety of [11] Qingping Wang, Changnian Lin, Yong Chang, etc. Study of HVDC
Hardware-in-Ioop Training Simulator, 2010 International Conference
cable types and characteristics may have effects on the on Power System Technology. Page1 6,2010
diagnose tree and the wave speed functions. So whether to be
capable to sort a universal model is worth further research.
APPENDIX
Lines Line 1(Station 1) Line 2(Station 2) Line 3(Station 3)
Elements (Rectifier) (Inverter) (Rectifier)
230kV 50Hz 230kV 50Hz 230kV 50Hz
AC System Rs = 13.79 Rs = 13.79 Rs = 13.79
L s = 62.23mH L s = 32.03mH L s = 62.23mH

200MVA 200MVA 200MVA

Transformer
230:100kV 230:100kV 230:100kV

AC filter 40MVar 40MVar 40MVar

R = 0.075 R = 0.075 R = 0.075
Series Filter
L = 23.89 H L = 23.89 H L = 23.89 H
IGBT bridge IGBT bridge IGBT bridge
VSC Rs = 5000 Rs = 5000 Rs = 5000
Cs = 1 F Cs = 1 F Cs = 1 F

R0 = 0.0139 / km R0 = 0.0139 / km R0 = 0.0139 / km

DC cable L0 = 0.159mH/km L0 = 0.159mH/km L0 = 0.159mH/km
C0 = 0.231 F/km C0 = 0.231 F/km C0 = 0.231 F/km

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