(foryear20012002revisiontoC37-l.doc

Theory for CT SAT Calculator (PSRC) Original document: 4 June 2001. 30 Sept. 03: changed cos to sin in (8), (9), (10); RP to 1/RP in (12) and (13) Spreadsheet originated by the IEEE PSRC committee responsible for C37.110 IEEE Guide for the Application of Current Transformers Used for Protective Relaying Purposes Person responsible for corrections or improvements - Glenn Swift at gswift@ieee.org Introduction The spread sheet “CT Saturation Calculator” is intended to provide quick indication not only of whether or not a CT will saturate in a particular application, but also an accurate indication of the actual waveshape of the secondary current so that the degree of saturation as a function of time is apparent. Furthermore, the data is available to the user to use as input to a digital relay model, if such is available. The user can convert the data into a COMTRADE file, for example. There are many technical papers on the subject of modeling the behavior of iron-cored current transformers used for protective relaying purposes. One of the difficulties in using an elaborate model (in any field of engineering) is in getting the parameters in a particular case in order to implement that model easily, efficiently and accurately. For example, the excitation current in the region below the knee-point is a complex combination of magnetizing, hysteresis and eddy-current components, the parameters of which are usually not known in a particular case. It turns out (can be shown) that, if the excitation current waveform reaches into the saturated region, the part of the waveform in the below-knee-point region has negligible effect on the overall solution. This simplifies the solution greatly, with little effect on accuracy. If errors under low current, low burden conditions are of interest, a more elaborate model must be used. Testing of the Model The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Because this model is new and quite different from those in the