Trip circuit supervision is used to monitor the wiring
from auxiliary power supply trough IEDs binary output and all the way to the
open coil of the breaker. It is recommended to know that trip circuit is on
healthy state when the breaker is closed. Application scheme for trip circuit
supervision with one digital input is presented in figure below.
Figure 1 Trip circuit supervision by using one DI and non-latched trip output.
Notice that DI monitoring the circuit is used as
normally closed. Same applies with the used alarm relay (if used). In
monitoring purposes and especially in trip circuit supervision it is
recommended to use closed contact in normal condition to confirm the condition
of wiring. Active digital input generates less than 2mA current to the circuit.
Normally current this small is not able to make the breaker open coil operate.
While the trip relay is controlled and the circuit breaker is being opened the
digital input is shorted by the trip contact as long as the breaker opens. This
normally takes approximately 100ms if the relay is non-latched. Therefore t =
1.0 second activation delay should be added to the digital input. Basically
activation delay just a bit longer than the operation time of circuit breaker
would be long enough. When CB failure protection is used it might be good to add
the CBFP operation time to the digital input activation time (tDI = tCB + tIEDrelease + tCBFP). See attached picture below.
Figure 2 The digital input used for TCS needs to have normally closed
polarity and also 1.0 second activation delay to avoid nuisance alarms while CB
is controlled open. Non-latched outputs are seen in the output matrix as
hollow circles. Latched contacts are painted. See below presented figure.
Figure 3 IED trip contact used to open the circuit breaker has to be
non-latched.
Non-latched trip output contact is a mandatory to have
if Autorecloser is used in feeder applications. TCS is generally easier and
more reliable to build with non-latched output.
The open coil is energized only as long as the circuit
breaker is opened and IED output releases. This takes approximately 100ms
depending of the size and type of the breaker. When the breaker opens the
auxiliary contacts will open the inductive circuit but the IED trip contact
won’t open at the same time. IEDs output relay contact will open in <50ms or
after configured release delay due the breaker is open. This means that the
open coil is energized for a short moment even the breaker is already open.
Coil could be energized even moment longer if circuit breaker failure
protection has to be used and incomer is performing the tripping.
The main difference between non-lathed and latched
control in trip circuit supervision is that when latched control is used it is
not possible to monitor the trip circuit in open state due the digital input is
shorted by the trip output of the IED.
Figure 4 Trip circuit
supervision by using one DI and latched output contact. It is possible to monitor trip circuit with latched
output contact but then monitoring the trip circuit is possible only while the
circuit breaker status is closed. Whenever the breaker is open the TCS is
blocked by an internal logic scheme. The disadvantage is that you don’t know
whether the trip circuit is intact or not when the breaker is closed again.
While the circuit breaker is in open position the TCS
alarm is blocked by using following logic scheme or similar. TCS alarm is
giving whenever the breaker is closed and inverted digital input signal (CTS)
activates. Normally closed digital input activates only when there is something
wrong in the trip circuit and the auxiliary power goes off. While the breaker
is open the logic is blocked. Logical output can be used in output matrix or in
SCADA as pleased.
Figure 5 TCS block scheme when non-latched trip output is not used.