A Novel Approach for Arcing Fault Detection for Medium/Low-Voltage Switchgear

This paper describes the development of a novel approach for the detection of arcing faults in medium/low-voltage switchgear. The basic concept involves the application of differential protection for the detection of any arcing within the switchgear. The new approach differs from the traditional differential concept in the fact that it employs higher frequency harmonic components of the line current as the input for the differential scheme. Actual arc generating test-benches have been set up in the laboratory to represent both medium and low voltage levels. Hall-effect sensors in conjunction with data acquisition system are employed to record the line current data before, during and after the arcing phenomenon. The methodology is first put to test via simulation approach for medium voltage levels and then corroborated by actual hardware laboratory testing for low voltage levels. The plots provided from the data gathering and simulation process clearly underline the efficiency of this approach to detect switchgear arcing faults. Both magnitude and phase differential concepts seem to provide satisfactory results. Apart from the technical efficiency, the approach is financially feasible considering the fact that the differential protection is already being comprehensively employed worldwide