Visualization and animation of protective relay operation

The evolution of software engineering, multitasking environment, object oriented programming and symbolically assisted simulation methods have enable the creation of interactive simulation environments that come close to providing a virtual experience of the actual system. These systems are useful for a variety of engineering and educational purposes. An important issue in power engineering is the understanding of protective relay operation and response to system disturbances. This paper focuses on protective relaying applications and the use of a virtual environment for the animation and visualization of protective relaying applications. The paper describes the virtual environment and the interaction of animation and visualization of protective relaying modules. The animation and visualization can be performed in the virtual environment or in an offline environment where the system disturbance is captured into a COMTRADE file and "played back" into the animator/visualizer. Two examples of protective relay types are presented: (a) a modified mho relay; and (b) a transformer differential relay. This tool is extremely valuable for educational purposes. Another potential application is digital relay testing.