Advanced Fault Analysis Software System (or AFAS) for Distribution Power Systems

An advanced fault analysis software system (or AFAS) is currently being developed at Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC) to automatically detect and locate low and high impedance, momentary and permanent faults in distribution power systems. Microsoft Visual Studio is used to integrate advanced software packages and analysis tools (including DEW, AEMPFAST, PSCAD, and CTC´s DSFL) under the AFAS platform. AFAS is an intelligent, operational, decision-support fault analysis tool that utilizes PSCAD to simulate fault transients of distribution systems to improve fault location accuracy of DSFL tool and to enhance DSFL capabilities for predicting low and high impedance, momentary and permanent faults. The implementation and evaluation results of this software tool have been presented.