Direct Fault Location in Electrical Power Systems

Fault location in electric power transmission or distribution systems is essential to the maintenance of reliable and continuous service. As a result, increased effort is being focused on fault locating procedures in distribution systems such that faults may be automatically isolated and unfaulted feeders restored to service in a short time. Presented is an^ alternative to existing fault locating procedures based upon the concept of the adjoint circuit and the recently derived theorem on the maximum number of independent simulations in N-port circuits. The theoretical approach is described for open circuit, short circuit, and mixed open and short circuit faults, followed by a numerical example applied to fault location in radial distribution feeders.