Determining locations of faults in distribution systems

The subject of estimating the locations of line faults has been of interest to electric power engineers for over twenty-five years. The majority of the work reported, has been aimed at finding the locations of transmission line faults. This paper presents a technique that estimates the location of a shunt fault in a distribution system which includes many `laterals´. The method uses the fundamental frequency voltages and currents measured at the line terminal. Intermediate load taps and nonhomogeneity of the line are taken into account. An iterative approach is used for finding the location of the fault. The technique estimates the location of single-phase-to-ground, two-phase-to-ground, phase-to-phase and balanced three-phase faults. Some test results are also reported