1. Create Your User Profile and Status Updates

    Arc Flash Forum members are invited to create a user profile. Let others know who you are, what you do and even add a picture or avatar of yourself. What are you up to? Let people in the arc flash and electrical safety community know with "status updates"!
  2. Welcome to the All New Arc Flash Forum

    Arc Flash Forum is a community where we help each other learn about arc flash and electrical safety. There is still much to be learned about arc flash, standards, PPE, studies and more and We need your HELP!

    If you have good information about Arc Flash - Post It! If you have a question about Arc Flash - Post It! If you can provide answers to Arc Flash questions - Post it!

    Sign up as a today member! Feel free to link to this site www.arcflashforum.com. Tell your friends. We want to help everyone be safe in the workplace!
  3. Bigger and Better!

    As you have no doubt noticed, the forum has been through quite an upgraded and looks and feels very nice! There are loads of new features and ways in which this site can now be even more useful to the community in learning about Arc Flash and Electrical Safety.

    Create your detailed user profile
    Add a profile photo of yourself
    Like the forum on Facebook
    "Like" users' posts
    Publish your articles in the library
    ...and much, much more!

    Learn More About the New Features Here

3P Fault current Vs SLG

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by SirSpark, Feb 21, 2009.

  1. SirSpark New Member

    So I was looking over a study done by another firm and I noticed something that seemed odd. The single line to ground (SLG) fault current was almost as much as the 3 Phase fault current.

    To me this does not make sense. For the sake of discussion let's say the available 3 Phase fault current was 53,000 they show a SLG of 50,000. Is there any thing that could possible cause this? The system is 480 and the utility feeds are 25kV into three 2500kVA TX to 480 with three utility input feeds at 4000A to the facility on three different busses.

    thoughts?
  2. acobb Well-Known Member

    Abaolutely makes sense. If the supply transformer is delta-wye, the line to ground fault duty would be higher than the three phase at the secondary. This occurs because the only zero sequence impedance you have at the secondary of the transformer is the transformer Z. None of the zero sequence from the primary transfers from the delta connection.
  3. SirSpark New Member

    I thought three phase bolted fault would be the worse case scenario?

    And would therefore be able to supply a higher available fault current. Which it does, I suppose I just assumed there to be a greater difference.

    I mean isn't the 3 Phase fault based on LLLG or is it just LLL

    I think I confused myself...lol
  4. acobb Well-Known Member

    Well, it is actually true that a delta-wye without a resistance grounded secondary will have a higher L to G than 3Ph. fault current. It will generally be higher downstream of the transformer until the negative sequence Z builds to the point that it equals the positive sequence.

    If it is a wye-wye connection then this will not be the case.

    IE doesn't necessarily follow that trend though if you are expecting a three phase fault instead of a single phase fault.
  5. SirSpark New Member

    Hence symmetrical fault. I just figured that more "power" would be involved in a LLL than a SLG fault. I guess I was confusing IE with available fault current.
  6. jghrist Well-Known Member

    There probably will be more energy involved in a LLL than SLG arcing fault even if the SLG fault current is higher. There are at least two arcs involved in a LLL fault and only one in a SLG fault.
  7. SirSpark New Member

    Yeah it all makes perfect sense now I dont know what I was thinking...

    I mean It is not Ia+Ib+Ic so why would fault current be any different....

    So then if we are talking delta-wye and similar conditions as previously stated one should suspect something is wrong if the SLG was significantly lower than the 3P....
  8. acobb Well-Known Member

    You should suspect something is wrong with a delta - solidly grounded wye if the L to G is not the highest available.
  9. SirSpark New Member

    Sure enough I had my neutral impedance values incorrect on the transformers...
  10. acobb Well-Known Member

    Good to get it figured out now instead of later!!! Glad it helped.
  11. SirSpark New Member

    Thanks for your help...

    Yeah I don't know what I was thinking, I was probably thinking to many things at once, the more I look at it the more it totally makes sense.

    At least I knew enough that something was odd in my calculations to further research it....

Share This Page