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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTIN

1.1 Background information

In now days, the electricity is very vital in our daily life. Electrical power is
continuously distributed to consumers thanks to large part of the distribution
system and transmission lines. A serious problem facing the electric power systems
is failure of overhead cables and transmission lines caused by various reasons:
failure of power system components due to aging of equipment, personnel errors,
lightning, heavy rain, strong wind and other reasons. These phenomena affect the
reliability and quality of the power supply, lead to equipment failure and costly
repairs, loss of productivity and loss of power for customers. This makes it very
difficult to determine the exact location of the faults that occur. There are two main
types of faults in power transmission and distribution system. The first one is open-
circuit faults (one conductor open, two conductors open, three conductors open).
Short circuit faults can be divided into two groups (symmetrical and
unsymmetrical fault). Symmetrical faults are three phase fault, three phase to
ground fault and very rare to occur. Unsymmetrical faults are single-line-to-ground
fault, double line-to-ground fault, line-to-line fault and they are the most common
types of fault occurred in power system. The objective of this project is to
demonstrate a software simulation and project model that determines the distance
of the cable fault from the base station in kilometers and display it over the LCD.
Cable has many types and every cable has different resistance which depends upon
the material used. The value of the resistance is depending upon the length of the
cable. In here resistance is the leading role of the project. If any deviation occurs in
the resistance, the value of the voltage will be changed that particular point is
called fault.
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1.2 Objective of the Project

1.2.1 General Objective

The main objective of this project is to detect the location of fault from the base
station in kilometers using an Arduino board.

1.2.2 Specific Objectives

 To applied the theory of ohm’s law, voltage division rules and concept
between the resistance of cable and its length for locating the fault as a set of
series resistors is used in this project representing the cable length
 To reduce the search time and accurately locating the fault location is of
great importance for improving the reliability of power systems
 To construct a DC power supply circuit
 To design fault sensing circuit
 To display on LCD the exact location of fault that occurs along the lines

1.3 Problem Statement

Modern electrical power systems are complex, extensive, and interconnected

systems over a large geographical area. These systems are made up of generators,
transformers, trans- mission lines, and loads as well as other protective equipment
such as relays and circuit breakers. Also, they operate as balanced 3-phase AC
power systems such as when they are in their normal conditions, the magnitude of
both currents and voltages are equally distributed between each phase. However, a
fault in a circuit may occur which will cause a disturbance or a failure that will
disrupt these normal operating conditions. The problem statement for short circuit
detection by using Arduino typically involves developing a system that can detect
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and identify short circuits in electrical system. The system should be able to
quickly identify the presence of a short circuit and provide an alert or indication to
the user based on simple concept of Ohm’s law. The goal is to prevent potential
damage to the circuit components and ensure electrical safety. This project also
saves humans from losses of their properties due to electricity problem and the
faster the fault location we know, the fewer the damage for both sides. The system
should be implemented using Arduino and appropriate sensors or techniques for
detecting short circuit location in a reliable and effective manner.

1.4 Scope of the Project

The scope of this project is intended to detect short circuit faults in underground
cable lines and to develop continuous real time condition monitoring and control
system for electricity in urban areas. Since this project intended on detection of
faults, it is very crucial. Faults are defined as the flow of a huge current through an
irregular path which will then cause equipment damage eventually leading to
interruption of power supply, human injury, or destabilization of the whole power
system.

1.4.1Rescoures of the Project

 The Arduino and other component require 5V DC Supply.

 Relay requires 12V dc
 It also requires rate of change of voltage and current when a fault
occurs
 Arduino IDE software and necessary program is essential to find the
fault location by microcontroller
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Chapter 2
Components and Theory
2.1 Components
The fundamental components used to establish fault location sensing circuit are
1. Arduino UNO
2. Power supply circuit
3. LCD
4. 12V 5 pin relays
5. Relay driver
6. Resistors
7. Switches

2.1.1 Arduino UNO

It is a powerful single board computer, an open source hardware platform
allowing creating interactive electronic objects. It consists of Arduino board, set of
various analog and digital I/O pins, serial communication interfaces, including
USB on some models, for loading programs from personal computers. Its platform
provides an integrated development environment (IDE) based on the processing
project, which includes support for C, C++ and Java programming languages. This
method features an Atmel Atmega328 operating at 5v with 2kb RAM, 32kb of
flash memory for storing programs and 1kb of EEPROM for storing parameters.
The clock speed is 16 MHz which translates to executing about of 300,000 lines of
C source code per second. We uploaded the program in the kit. Program was
written if any fault occurs in the cable, immediately will show the exact location of
fault.
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2.1.2 Pin Configuration

Every Arduino board needs a way to be connected to a power source. The Arduino
UNO can be powered from a USB cable coming from our computer or a wall
power supplies. It’s not allowed to use a power supply greater than 20 Volts as we
will overpower and thereby destroy the Arduino. The recommended voltage for
most Arduino models is between 6 and 12 Volts. The pins on the Arduino are the
places where it will connect wires to construct a circuit probably in conjunction
with a breadboard and some wire. The Arduino has several different kinds of pins,
each of which is labeled on the board and used for different functions.
GND: Short for „Ground‟. There are several GND pins on the Arduino, any of which can be
used to ground your circuit.
Analog: The area of pins under the “Analog In” label (A0 through A5 on the
UNO) is Analog In pins. These pins can read the signal from an analog sensor (like
a temperature sensor) and convert it into a digital value that we can read.
Digital: Across from the analog pins are the digital pins (0 through 13 on the
UNO). These pins can be used for both digital input (like telling if a button is
pushed) and digital output (like powering an LED).
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PWM: The digital pins (3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 on the UNO). These pins act as
normal digital pins, but it can also be used for something called Pulse-Width
Modulation (PWM).
AREF (Stands for Analog Reference): Most of the time you can leave this pin
alone. It is sometimes used to set an external reference voltage (between 0 and 5
Volts) as the upper limit for the analog input pins.

2.1.3 Power supply circuit

The power supply circuit is one of the important parts of this project, without a
power supply the electronic device such as switches, relay, and LCD display will
not function. Similarly, a wrong power supply design will lead to the damage of
electronic devices used in this project. The main power supplies needed for this
project is 5 VDC and 12 VDC in order to power on the relay and other electronic
devices. The design is done using a transformer, bridge rectifiers and filter
capacitor. Figure below shows the sequential process of designing a constant DC
power supply.

Figure 3.1: Design of Power Supply Circuit

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2.1.4 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)

An LCD is an electronic display module which uses liquid crystal to produce a
visible image. A liquid crystal display or LCD draws its definition from its name
itself. It is combination of two states of matter, the solid and the liquid. Liquid
crystal displays are super-thin technology display screen that are generally used in
laptop computer screen, TVs, cell phones and portable video games. Liquid crystal
display is composed of several layers which include two polarized panel filters and
electrodes. LCD technology is used for displaying the image in notebook or some
other electronic devices like mini computers. Light is projected from a lens on a
layer of liquid crystal. This combination of colored light with the grayscale image
of the crystal (formed as electric current flows through the crystal) forms the
colored image. This image is then displayed on the screen. An LCD is either made
up of an active matrix display grid or a passive display grid. Most of the
Smartphone ‘s with LCD display technology uses active matrix display, but some
of the older displays still make use of the passive display grid designs. Most of the
electronic devices mainly depend on liquid crystal display technology for their
display. The liquid has a unique advantage of having low power consumption than
the LED or cathode ray tube. Most of the LCD Displays available in the market are
16X2 (That means, the LCD displays are capable of displaying 2 lines each having
16 Characters a), 20X4 LCD Displays (4 lines, 20 characters). It has 14 pins.
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2.1.5 Relay
A relay is electromechanical switch which is used in industrial application to
provide isolation between high voltage and low voltage circuits. These two circuits
have different voltage rating. One might be a low voltage side and other high
voltage side. Electrical mechanical relay has three main components coil, spring
and contact. When coil is energized, internal spring of electro mechanical relay
attract or pulls contact towards other point and complete the circuit. An
electromechanical relay can be either normally open or normally closed. In our
project, normally open electro mechanical relay is used. A voltage is required to
energize the coil, vary from relay to relay. Voltage may vary from 5 volts to 50
volts and current may vary from 10mA to 20mA. The relays also have minimum
voltage rating. Its means below the voltage rating, relay will not operate. One can
check minimum operating voltage of relay in its data sheet. But current
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requirements are not specified in date sheets. Coil resistance is usually provided in
data sheet of relay which can be used to find current requirement of relay using
Ohm’s law formula V= IR. Relays are used in a wide variety of applications like
electric power systems, home appliances, automobiles, industrial equipment,
digital computers, etc.

Figure; relay

2.1.6 Relay Driver

Relays are used mostly interfaced with microcontrollers and digital systems. But
microcontroller usually cannot provide enough current to drive relays.
Microcontrollers pins usually provide maximum current of 1-2 mA per pin which
is not enough to operate relay. The circuits which are used to derive relays are
called relay driver circuits. Therefore, relay driver circuits using ULN2003 is used
to drive relays.
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It is a monolithic high voltage and high current Darlington transistor arrays. It

consists of seven NPN Darlington pairs that feature high voltage outputs with
common cathode clamp for switching inductive loads. It has high current carrying
capability of about 500mA. We need to use relays to control AC loads or high
voltage loads. Relays are used to provide isolation between microcontroller’s
circuits and high voltage operating loads. Microcontrollers are only used to provide
on/off signals to relays. Microcontrollers don’t have enough current sourcing
ability to derive relays. Therefore, relay driver circuits IC is used to derive relays
properly.

Figure;Relay driver

2.1.7 Resistors
A resistor is a passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical
resistance as a circuit element. In electronic circuits, resistors are used to reduce
current flow, adjust signal levels, to divide voltages, bias active elements, and
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terminate transmission lines, among other uses. Resistors are common elements
of electrical networks and electronic circuits and are ubiquitous in electronic
equipment. The electrical function of a resistor is specified by its resistance:
common commercial resistors are manufactured over a range of more than
nine orders of magnitude. The nominal value of the resistance falls within
the manufacturing tolerance, indicated on the component.

Figure: Resistors

2.1.8 Switches

It is a mechanical switch that is used to control the flow of current in a circuit by

sliding the slider from the OFF (open) position to the ON (close) position known
as a slide switch. This switch simply controls the current within a circuit without
cutting a wire manually. These switches will stay in one position until changed into
another position manually. The construction of the slide switch can be done by
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using metal slides that contact the plane metal elements on the switch. When the
slider in the switch is moved then metal slide contacts will slide from one set of
metal contacts to the other for activating the switch. This switch includes three
terminals like one common pin & remaining two pins which compete for
connection toward the common.

SPST Slide Switch

2.2 Types of Fault in Power System

The fault in the power system is defined as the defect in the power system due to
which the current is distracted from the intended path. The fault creates the
abnormal condition which reduces the insulation strength between the conductors.
The reduction in insulation causes excessive damage to the system. The fault in
the power system is mainly categorized into two types. They are
1. Open Circuit Fault
2. Short Circuit Fault.
The different types of power system fault are shown below in the image.
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2.2.1 Open Circuit Fault

An open-circuit fault occurs if a circuit is interrupted by some failure. If the
circuit is not closed that is called open circuit fault. This type of fault is better than
short circuit fault, because when the open circuit fault occurs, then the flow of
current through a cable becomes zero. This fault can be occurred by disruption in
conducting path. Such faults occur when one or more phase conductors break.

2.2.2 Short Circuit Fault

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In this type of fault, the conductors of the different phases come into contact with
each other with a power line, power transformer or any other circuit element due to
which the large current flow in one or two phases of the system. The short-circuit
fault is divided into the symmetrical and unsymmetrical fault.

Symmetrical Fault

In symmetrical fault, three phases are short circuited in this type of fault. Since the
three phases are equally affected, the system remains balanced. That is why, this
fault is called a symmetrical or a balanced fault and the fault analysis is done on
per phase basis. The behavior of LLLG fault and LLL fault is identical due to the
balanced nature of the fault. This is a very severe fault that can occur in a system
and if ¯ Zf = 0, this is usually the most severe fault that can occur in a system.
Fortunately, such faults occur in frequently and only about 5% of the system faults
are three phase faults

Unsymmetrical Fault

Faults in which the balanced state of the net work is disturbed are called
unsymmetrical or unbalanced faults. The most common type of unbalanced fault in
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a system is a single line to ground fault (LG fault). Almost 60 to 75% off faults in a
system are LG faults. The other types of unbalanced faults are line to line faults
(LL faults) and double line to ground faults (LLG faults). About 15 to 25% faults
are LLG faults and 5 to 15% are LL faults.

2.3 Ohm's law

Ohm's law states that the voltage (V) across a resistor is proportional to the current
(I), where the constant of proportionality is the resistance (R). For example, if a
300-ohm resistor is attached across the terminals of a 12-volt battery, then a
current of 12 / 300 = 0.04 amperes flows through that resistor.

Electric voltage is the difference in electric potential energy between two points
per unit electric charge. It is measured in Volts, which are equal to a joule of
energy per coulomb of charge.

Electrical current is a flow of electric charge. It is measured in ampere, or amps.,

which are equal to a flow of one coulomb of charge per second.

Electrical resistance is the measure of how difficult it is to pass an electric current

through a conductor. It is measured in Ohms, which are equal to a volt per ampere.

Power - the rate of change at which the energy is transformed, i.e. the change in
energy per second. A current is number of coulombs per second flowing through a
circuit and the voltage is a measure of energy per coulomb. By multiplying the
voltage and the current, we have

= coulombs/seconds x joules/coulomb
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= joules/second

This is energy per second which we call power. So, we can say that in case of short
circuit and fault conditions, current increases to the higher value and voltage
decrease as power is constant from the generation station.

So we can say that, in case of short circuit and fault conditions, Inductive reactance is
zero, current increases to the higher value and voltage decreases as power is
constant from the power house.

When LG, LL, LLG, LLL or LLLG fault occur in a system then current increases and voltage
decreases. Increase in current occur due to the fact that system impedance decreases during
fault condition whereas decrease in voltage happens due to demagnetizing nature of
armature reaction. As we know fault current is almost lagging in nature considering the fact
that fault current is majorly limited by system reactance. So during fault condition lagging
current increases which increase demagnetizing armature mmf which will result in reduction
of resultant field mmf. Due to decrease in net field mmf, excitation voltage decreases hence
terminal voltage also decreases.

1. Let’s use very low voltage, 5V. The current needed to power a 100W lamp will be
100W / 5V = 20A.
2. Let’s use very high voltage, 500V. The current needed to power a 100W lamp will
be 100W / 500V = 0.2A.
Now let’s assume that each wire has a constant resistance, equal to 0.01ohm, or 10
milliohms, which is a quite low, but still nonzero. Voltage drop across one wire, from Ohm’s
law, will be: U = I × R.
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1. In the first case (100W = 5V × 20A), voltage drop across one wire will be 20A ×
0.01Ω = 0.2V. The power dissipated by this wire will be 0.2V × 20A = 4W, so
transformer will need to supply 100W for the bulb + 8W for losses on two wires.
2. In the second case (100W = 500V × 0.2A), voltage drop across one wire will be
0.2A × 0.01Ω = 0.002V, or 2 mV. The power dissipated by this wire equals to
0.002V × 0.2A = 0.0004W, or 0.4 mW. Transformer needs to supply 100W for the
bulb + 0.8 mW for losses.

Arduino Uno Pinout Configuration

Pin Category Pin Name Details

Power Vin, 3.3V, 5V, GND Vin: Input voltage to Arduino when using an
external power source.

5V: Regulated power supply used to power

microcontroller and other components on
the board.

3.3V: 3.3V supply generated by on-board

voltage regulator. Maximum current draw is
50mA.

GND: ground pins.

Reset Reset Resets the microcontroller.

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Analog Pins A0 – A5 Used to provide analog input in the range of

0-5V

Input/Output Digital Pins 0 - 13 Can be used as input or output pins.

Pins

Serial 0(Rx), 1(Tx) Used to receive and transmit TTL serial data.

External 2, 3 To trigger an interrupt.

Interrupts

PWM 3, 5, 6, 9, 11 Provides 8-bit PWM output.

SPI 10 (SS), 11 (MOSI), Used for SPI communication.

12 (MISO) and 13
(SCK)

Inbuilt LED 13 To turn on the inbuilt LED.

TWI A4 (SDA), A5 (SCA) Used for TWI communication.

AREF AREF To provide reference voltage for input

voltage.

Arduino Uno Technical Specifications

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Microcontroller ATmega328P – 8 bit AVR family microcontroller

Operating Voltage 5V

Recommended Input Voltage 7-12V

Input Voltage Limits 6-20V

Analog Input Pins 6 (A0 – A5)

Digital I/O Pins 14 (Out of which 6 provide PWM output)

DC Current on I/O Pins 40 mA

DC Current on 3.3V Pin 50 mA

Flash Memory 32 KB (0.5 KB is used for Bootloader)

SRAM 2 KB

EEPROM 1 KB

Frequency (Clock Speed) 16 MHz

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; fast fault detection can help to protect the equipment before any significant
damage of the equipment.

The exact fault location can help service man to remove persistent of the faults and locate the areas
where the faults occur regularly, thus reducing the occurrence of fault and minimize the time of power
outages.