Knee Point Voltage of Current

Transformer PS Class
Current Transformer PS Class
Before understanding Knee Point Voltage of Current Transformer and
current transformer PS class we should recall the terms instrument
security factor of CT and accuracy limit factor.

Instrument Security Factor or ISF of Current

Transformer
Instrument security factor is the ratio of instrument limit primary current
to the rated primary current. Instrument limit current of a metering current
transformer is the maximum value of primary current beyond which current
transformer core becomes saturated. Instrument security factor of CT is the
significant factor for choosing the metering instruments which to be
connected to the secondary of the CT. Security or Safety of the measuring
unit is better, if ISF is low. If we go through the example below it would be
clear to us.
Suppose one current transformer has rating 100/1 A and ISF is 1.5 and
another current transformer has same rating with ISF 2. That means, in first
CT, the metering core would be saturated at 1.5 100 or 150 A, whereas is
second CT, core will be saturated at 2 100 or 200 A. That means whatever
may be the primary current of both CTs, secondary current will not increase
further after 150 and 200 A of primary current of the CTs respectively. Hence
maximum secondary current of the CTs would be 1.5 and 2.0 A.
As the maximum current can flow through the instrument connected to the
first CT is 1.5 A which is less than the maximum value of current can flow
through the instrument connected to the second CT i.e. 2 A. Hence security
or safety of the instruments of first CT is better than later.
Another significance of ISF is during huge electrical fault, the short circuit
current, flows through primary of the CT does not affect destructively, the
measuring instrument attached to it as because, the secondary current of
the CT will not rise above the value of rated secondary current multiplied by
ISF.

Accuracy Limit Factor or ALF of Current

Transformer
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For protection current transformer, the ratio of accuracy limit primary current
to the rated primary current. First we will explain, what is rated accuracy
limit primary current?.
Broadly, this is the maximum value of primary current, beyond which core of
the protection CT or simply protection core of of a CT starts saturated. The
value of rated accuracy limit primary current is always many times more
than the value of instrument limit primary current. Actually CT transforms
the fault current of the electrical power system for operation of the
protection relays connected to the secondary of that CT. If the core of the CT
becomes saturated at lower value of primary current, as in the case of
metering CT, the system fault will not reflect properly to the secondary,
which may cause, the relays remain inoperative even the fault level of the
system is large enough. That is why the core of the protection CT is made
such a way that saturation level of that core must be high enough. But still
there is a limit as because, it is impossible to make one magnetic core with
infinitely high saturation level and secondly most important reason is that
although the protection care should have high saturation level but that must
be limited up to certain level otherwise total transformation of primary
current during huge fault may badly damage the protection relays. So it is
clear from above explanation, rated accuracy limit primary current, should
not be so less, that it will not at all help the relays to be operated on the
other hand this value must not be so high that it can damage the relays.
So, accuracy limit factor or ALF should not have the value nearer to unit
and at the same time it should not be as high as 100. The standard values of
ALF as per IS-2705 are 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30.

Knee Point Voltage of Current Transformer

This is the significance of saturation level of a CT core mainly used for
protection purposes. The sinusoidal voltage of rated frequency applied to the
secondary terminals of current transformer, with other winding being open
circuited, which when increased by 10% cause the exiting current to
increase 50%. The CT core is made of CRGO steel. It has its won saturation
level. The EMF induced in the CT secondary windings is
E2 = 4.44fT2
Where, f is the system frequency, is the maximum magnetic flux in Wb. T2
is the number of turns of the secondary winding. The flux in the core, is
produced by excitation current Ie. We have a non-liner relationship between
excitation current and magnetizing flux. After certain value of excitation
current, flux will not further increase so rapidly with increase in excitation
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current. This non-liner relation curve is also called B - H curve. Again from
the equation above, it is found that, secondary voltage of a current
transformer is directly proportional to flux . Hence one typical curve can be
drawn from this relation between secondary voltage and excitation current
as shown below. It is clear from the curve that, linear relation between V
and Ie is maintained from point A and K. The point A is known as ankle
point and point K is known as Knee Point.

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In differential and restricted earth fault (REF) protection scheme, accuracy
class and ALF of the CT may not ensure the reliability of the operation. It is
desired that, differential and REF relays should not be operated when fault
occurs outside the protected transformer. When any fault occurs outside the
differential protection zone, the faulty current flows through the CTs of both
sides of electrical power transformer. The both LV and HV CTs have
magnetizing characteristics. Beyond the knee point, for slight increase in
secondary emf a large increasing in excitation current is required. So after
this knee point excitation current of both current transformers will be
extremely high, which may cause mismatch between secondary current of
LV & HV current transformers. This phenomena may cause unexpected
tripping of power transformer. So the magnetizing characteristics of both LV
& HV sides CTs, should be same that means they have same knee point
voltage Vk as well as same excitation current Ie at Vk/2. It can be again said
that, if both knee point voltage of current transformer and magnetizing
characteristic of CTs of both sides of power transformer differ, there must be
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a mismatch in high excitation currents of the CTs during fault which

ultimately causes the unbalancing between secondary current of both groups
of CTs and transformer trips.
So for choosing CT for differential protection of transformer, one should
consider current transformer PS class rather its convectional protection
class. PS stands for protection special which is defined by knee point
voltage of current transformer Vk and excitation current Ie at Vk/2.

Why CT Secondary Should Not Be Kept Open?

The electrical power system load current always flows through current
transformer primary; irrespective of whether the current transformer is open
circuited or connected to burden at its secondary.

If CT secondary is open circuited, all the primary current will behave as

excitation current, which ultimately produce huge voltage. Every current
transformer has its won non-linear magnetizing curve, because of which
secondary open circuit voltage should be limited by saturation of the core. If
one can measure the rms voltage across the secondary terminals, he or she
will get the value which may not appear to be dangerous. As the CT primary
current is sinusoidal in nature, it zero 100 times per second.(As frequency of
the current is 50 Hz). The rate of change of flux at every current zero is not
limited by saturation and is high indeed. This develops extremely high peaks
or pulses of voltage. This high peaks of voltage may not be measured by
conventional voltmeter. But these high peaks of induced voltage may
breakdown the CT insulation, and may case accident to personnel. The
actual open-circuit voltage peak is difficult to measure accurately because of
its very short peaks. That is why CT secondary should not be kept open.