Implementing & Testing Breaker Failure Schemes

Many different types of circuit interrupters or breakers are used to isolate and prevent sustained faults. These have different types of failure modes which include trip coil failure, trip circuit opening, mechanical latch malfunction and insulating gas leaks, to name a few.

A sustained fault is recognized when it takes longer to isolate it than the sum of the normal relay and device operating times. Because time is of the essence when clearing faults on the power system to avoid destabilization and further damage, critical clearing time studies are performed to determine the maximum amount of time that faults can be sustained before cascading failures will occur.
Breaker Failure protection schemes are developed from the critical clearing time studies and are implemented to minimize the elapsed time between a fault being detected and ultimately extinguished allowing the system to regain stability. It is a high-speed protection scheme that trips surrounding interrupting devices in case the initial intended device should fail.

The objective of this webinar is to analyze the implementation of breaker failure schemes and provide different methods of testing these. Breaker status based schemes, such as those commonly used in generation applications will be addressed. Transmission and distribution applications will also be discussed. Finally, communication-based breaker failure protection schemes, such as those implemented using IEC61850, will be presented. During the webinar we will present a comparison of the performance of different breaker failure protection schemes and will show the limitations and advantages of each approach to breaker failure protection. Bench testing methods as well as field testing, of breaker failure protection schemes will be discussed.

This is a free webinar

All webinar attendees are eligible to receive 1 NETA CTD and 1 PDH or 0.1 CEU.