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MATLAB/PSB based modeling and simulation of 25 kV AC railway traction

system - a particular reference to loading and fault conditions

Conference Paper · December 2004

DOI: 10.1109/TENCON.2004.1414819 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 508
MATLAB/PSB BASED MODELING AND SIMULATION OF 25 KV AC
RAILWAY TRACTION SYSTEM- A PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO
LOADING AND FAULT CONDITIONS
U. J. Shenoy, Senior Member, IEEE, K. G. Sheshadri, K. Parthasarathy, Senior Member, IEEE,
H. P. Khincha, Senior Member, IEEE, D. Thukaram, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract --This paper presents the modeling and phases of the three-phase supply in rotation having a
simulation of a 25 kV 50 Hz AC traction system using phase difference of 120o. The supply to the OHE can be
Power System Block set (PSB) / SIMULINK software switched ON/OFF through interruptors. Normally
package. The three-phase system with substations, power supply from the traction substation extends upto
track section with rectifier-fed DC locomotives and a the sectioning post (SP) on either side of the substation,
detailed traction load are included in the model. The but in case of an emergency necessitating total shut
model has been used to study the effect of loading and down of the substation, it can be extended upto the
fault conditions in 25 kV AC traction. The relay failed substation by closing the bridging interruptors at
characteristic proposed is a combination of two the two SPs.
quadrilaterals in the X-R plane. A brief summary of the
hardware set-up used to implement and test the relay
characteristic using a Texas Instruments TMS320C50
digital signal processor (DSP) has also been presented.
Keywords—Traction system, PSB/SIMULINK, Wrong
phase coupling, TMS320C50 DSP, Quadrilateral relay
characteristic

1. INTRODUCTION
The function of an AC traction system is to deliver
power to the locomotives as efficiently and
economically as possible. Problems involved in
providing protection to traction systems are different
from those faced in protecting other transmission lines
or distribution systems working at the same voltage
level. This is due to the continuous movement of
locomotive load, change in the length of the line during Fig. 1. Typical feeding arrangement of 25 kV traction system
of Indian Railways
operation, nature of loading, voltage drop due to the
flow of the lagging reactive current in inductive Fault on the OHE can be of two types (i) Earth faults
components of the overhead system and the high levels (ii) Phase-to-phase faults. The second fault can occur
of harmonic distortion [1]. The situation is further by accidental closure of the bridging interruptor at the
aggravated due to the use of DC series motors in SP during normal feeding condition or by a short circuit
electric locomotives, which draw large current on at the insulated overlap opposite a traction substation at
starting. It may happen at times that several times of emergency feed conditions. This is termed as
locomotives run in the same section of the overhead Wrong phase coupling (WPC) fault.
equipment (OHE), leading to large increase in load. The harmonic currents drawn by the dc motor
The impedance seen by the relay on such heavy loads locomotives degrade the power quality of the traction
may be even smaller than that on distant earth faults. supply [3]. The excessive voltage drop due to the flow
Fig. 1 shows the typical feeding arrangement of a 25 of lagging reactive current makes the performance of
kV electrified railway system. The load current drawn the system even worse. Voltage regulation with shunt
by locomotives is rich in odd harmonic components [2]. compensation allows overcoming these drawbacks.
The adjacent traction substations are fed from different Static VAR Compensators (SVCs), Thyristor controlled
reactors (TCRs) and Thyristor Switched Capacitors
U.J.Shenoy, corresponding author (e-mail: (TSCs) can be used to provide such compensation.
ujs@ee.iisc.ernet.in) is Principal Research Scientist, K.G.
This paper presents the modeling, simulation,
Sheshadri (e-mail: kg_sheshadri@yahoo.com) is the Project
Assistant, H.P. Khincha (e-mail: hpk@ee.iisc.ernet.in) and D. implementation and testing of a quadrilateral
Thukaram (e-mail: dtram@ee.iisc.ernet.in) are Professors in the characteristic single-phase digital distance relay for 25
Electrical Engg. Department, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore- kV AC traction applications. A Texas Instruments
560 012.
K. Parthasarathy (e-mail: prdc@vsnl.com) is with the Power
TMS320C50 digital processor (DSP) has been used to
Research & Development Company, Bangalore. support the high-speed numeric processing capabilities
required for transmission line protection.
0-7803-8560-8/04/$20.00©2004 IEEE
 509
2. RAILWAY TRACTION SYSTEM MODEL with a small fault resistance has been used. The timing
of the fault is provided by a timer block that goes high
In order to investigate the performance of faults and
at the fault instant, thus closing the switch and
loading conditions, the OHE of a typical 25 kV traction
providing a path to the ground.
system of the Indian Railways has been considered.
The Power System Block set (PSB) of
MATLAB/SIMULINK is a modern design tool used to
build the simulation models for electric power system
as well as its interactions with other systems [4]-[6].
The basic function blocks of the individual subsystems
are developed initially and are interconnected to form
the full system model. Each system element is modeled
based on its specifications [7].
2.1 Three-phase AC supply system
A three phase 220 kV, 50 Hz AC supply system with
the 220 kV single circuit transmission line has been
modeled as shown in Fig. 2. The power received from
the supply authority grid network is transmitted to the
railway’s own transmission lines by a series of
transformer and line sectioning facilities. The Fig. 3. Model of Substation 1 with traction feeder and loads
substations have been modeled as subsystems. A
bridging interruptor modeled as a switch connected 2.3 Locomotive model
between Substation 1 (Sub1) and Substation 2 (Sub2) The locomotives are assumed to be of the conventional
facilitates the simulation of WPC faults. thyristor type with a total locomotive rating of 2.5 MW
(rated at 25 kV). They are modeled as two half-
controlled thyristor-diode bridge rectifiers with each
rectifier having parameters of ON state resistance Ron =
1mΩ, forward voltage = 0.8 V, snubber resistance =
100 Ω. The upper and lower half-bridge converters
convert AC voltage to a controlled DC voltage. AC
voltage from the 25 kV feeder is reduced to the
required voltage of the power converters. Each
thyristor-diode bridge is fed from a 25 kV/ 2 X 400 V
three winding single phase transformer having 8%
impedance and saturable characteristics. Fig. 4 shows
the locomotive model.

3. SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

In order to investigate the effects of the faults and
Fig. 2. Model of three-phase supply grid with substations loading conditions in the traction system, a number of
2.2 Substation and Track section model cases have been studied with and without TSC. The
Fig. 3 shows the modeling of Substation 1. The load distributions have been coded as a number, with
modeling of Substation 2 is identical to that of each case representing the number of fully loaded
Substation 1. The 25 kV supply for traction system is locomotives at the related loading points in Fig. 3 both
drawn through a single phase step down transformer. in Substation 1 and Substation 2. For example, a load
This is modeled as a 25 MVA, 220 kV/25kV, two pattern of 1110 for Substation 1 means that there are 3
winding single phase transformer with impedance of locomotives connected to the track section, one at 12
12% at 25 MVA base. The average length of the km, the second locomotive at 24 km and the third
catenary to be protected during normal feed conditions locomotive at 32 km.
is 40 km. This feeder is modeled as ten 4 km pi
sections, each having a longitudinal impedance of 3.1 Simulation waveforms
Figs. 5-8 show some representative simulation
0.169+j0.432 Ω/km at 50 Hz and shunt capacitance of
waveforms of the feeder voltage and feeder current
0.011 μF/km [8]. This facilitates the simulation of earth
without the TSC. In order to study the effect of earth
faults from 10% to 90% of the line. The TSC is
faults and WPC faults separately, initially earth faults
modeled appropriately by choosing reactor and
were simulated at different points on the traction feeder
capacitor values tuned to a particular frequency (i.e. the
(from 10% to 90% of the line) with the bridging
third harmonic) and can reduce the harmonic pollution.
interruptor open and fault block connected. The
In order to simulate earth faults, an ideal switch block
SIMULINK/PSB also facilitates the timing of the fault
 510
by varying the timer parameters, fault resistance and 4. RELAY CHARACTERISTIC
location of the fault. The bridging interruptor was then
Quadrilateral relay characteristics provide higher
closed with the earth fault block removed and the WPC
resistive coverage than mho characteristics.
simulation studies were carried out. The waveforms
Quadrilateral characteristics have proved very versatile
monitored at both the leading and lagging end
in protecting railway overhead lines. They permit each
substations are as shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.
relay to protect longer sections of the line, while
avoiding the traction load [9]. Heavy traction loading
can lead to load encroachment problems. In the
proposed digital distance relay, the quadrilateral
characteristic is as shown in Fig. 9. The detection of the
fault using the above logic applies to Zone-1 protection.
The relay reach settings and other parameters have been
chosen as given in Table I.
Usually protection for a WPC fault on traction
OHE is provided by an offset mho relay and that on
earth fault by a plain mho relay. But due to overlap of
the two characteristics, some times the earth fault relay
Fig. 5 Waveforms for Case with 1 loco in Sub1, No locos in
operates on WPC fault too. A tripping decision based
Sub2, No fault, loading conditions
only on angle is not sufficient enough to detect. The
impedance seen by the relay on WPC fault at the
substation with lagging voltage always lies in the
second quadrant of the relay characteristic while that
for earth fault lies in the first quadrant. Therefore, these
two faults can be discriminated by having two relay
characteristics as shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 6 Waveforms for Case with 2 locos in Sub1, 1 loco in

Sub2, Earth fault at t=0.13 s at 80% of line.

Fig. 9. Quadrilateral relay characteristic for traction

feeder

5. DSP BASED HARDWARE SETUP FOR

IMPLEMENTING RELAY CHARCATERISTIC
Fig. 10 shows the hardware set-up for implementation
Fig. 7. Waveform for Case with 3 locos in Sub1, No loco in of the proposed relay. The data files containing the
Sub2 (Leading end), WPC fault at t=0.14 s
samples of feeder voltage and current obtained from
simulation studies of traction system are reproduced on
a real-time basis using a 12-bit Burr Brown DAC-4815
Digital to Analog converter card interfaced to PC with a
sampling frequency of 3 kHz after suitable signal
conditioning. The relaying hardware has been built
using Texas Instruments TMS320C50 DSP hardware
platform. A 12-bit Burr Brown ADS-7804 Analog-to-
Digital Converter (ADC) with conversion time of 7.6μs
has been interfaced to the DSP hardware to acquire
incoming samples of feeder voltage and current. The
Fig. 8 Waveforms for Case with 3 locos in Sub1, No loco in relaying software including signal acquisition,
Sub2 (Lagging end), WPC fault at t=0.14 s processing of data and the relaying logics for
 511
quadrilateral characteristic are written in the assembly Table II. Typical results of impedance
language of the TMS320C50 DSP processor. The
Fourier Full cycle algorithm with 12-sample window
has been used to evaluate the magnitude of incoming
signals and to calculate the impedance. The relay
characteristic has been tested using the simulated cases
of the traction system. The computations for processing
of relaying algorithm including the relaying logic are
carried out within 120μs.
Table I. Typical Relay characteristic parameters

7. CONCLUSIONS
This paper describes modeling and simulation of a 25
kV AC traction railway system using MATLAB/PSB.
The software supports the accurate modeling and
simulation of the system, creation of earth and wrong-
phase coupling faults. The faults are accurately detected
in the proposed relay characteristic, which has been
implemented on the TMS320C50 DSP processor. The
results show that the proposed simulation is accurate
6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
and can prove to be a tool to develop high-speed
The performance of the relay has been evaluated using reliable distance relays for traction feeders.
the data simulated from MATLAB/SIMULINK/PSB
based studies. The earth fault studies have been carried 8. REFERENCES
out for various locations along the traction feeder for
[1] R. P. Maheshwari, H. K. Verma, “Adaptive Digital relay for
different timing of the faults. The performance of the comprehensive distance protection of traction overhead
relay for various harmonics in the feeder voltage and equipment”, Developments in Power system protection,
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program. For each such case the phase of the feeder 331-337.
[2] Gao Shibin, He Weijun, Chen Xiaochuan, “Study on
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[8] Pee-Chin Tan, Robert E. Morrison, Donald Grahame Holmes,
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Fig. 10 Block diagram of the hardware set-up for relay
characteristic implementation

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