Operational and Safety Considerations for Light Rail DC Traction Electrification System Design
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
LIGHT RAIL ELECTRIFICATION Operational and Safety Considerations for Light Rail DC Traction Electrification System Design KINH D. PHAM Elcon Associates, Inc., Engineers & Consultants RALPH S. THOMAS WALTER E. STINGER, JR. LTK Engineering Services n overview is presented of an integrated approach to operational and safety issues when A designing a DC traction electrification system (TES) for modern light rail and streetcar systems. First, the human body electrical circuit model is developed, and tolerable step and touch potentials derived from IEEE Standard 80 are defined. Touch voltages that are commonly present around the rails, at station platforms, at traction power substations are identified and analyzed. Operational and safety topics discussed include • Applicable codes and standards for electrical safety; • Traction power substation (TPS) grounding; • Detection of ground faults; • DC protective relaying schemes including rail-to-earth voltage sensing and nuisance tripping, and transfer tripping of adjacent substations; • TES system surge protection; • Electromagnetic and induced voltage problems that could cause disturbances in the signaling system; • DC stray currents that can cause corrosion and damage to the negative return system, underground utilities, telecommunication cables, and other metallic structures; and • Emergency shutdown trip stations (ETS). To ensure safety of the project personnel and the public, extensive testing and proper and safe equipment operation, are required. The testing includes factory testing of the DC protection system, first article inspection of critical TES components, inspection and field testing during commissioning. In addition, safety certification must be accomplished before the TES system is energized and put into operation. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW The TES for a typical modern light rail or street car system includes an overhead contact system (OCS), traction power substations and feeder cables, together with associated substation protective devices, and may include supervisory control and data acquisition. The feeder cables include both the substation DC feeder cables and possible supplementary parallel dc feeders. It is important to 650 Pham, Thomas, and Stinger 651 recognize that there are fundamental differences in safety and operation between LRT and street car systems that may run on city streets, and third rail or heavy rail systems which run on a dedicated right of way where the public is well isolated from the rails and the TES. For many LRT and streetcar systems, the rails are embedded in public streets where the public can walk on the rails. Occasionally, an OCS contact wire may break and contact an OCS pole, or fall on a metallic fence, or contact and energize other metallic objects such as station shelters. Ground faults in DC feeder conductors can result in energized OCS poles or manhole lids, yet there is no common method that we know of which is capable of detecting OCS ground faults on the system, and safely isolating these faults. Indeed, we could have fault currents resulting from a very high impedance ground fault that are extremely hard to distinguish from train accelerating currents. Since the rails are purposely insulated from earth to minimize stray currents, rail-to-earth voltage must be limited to a safe level due to the touch voltages present around the rails which could be a danger to passengers and personnel. APPLICABLE CODES AND STANDARDS At present, the following electrical safety standards are available for use as a basis for design: • IEEE Standard 80, Guide for Safety in Ac Substation Grounding, which defines methods for calculating safe touch and step potential, and is widely used in the transportation industry for traction power substation grounding. • The National Electrical Code. • NFPA 130, Standard for Fixed Guideway Transit and Passenger Rail Systems. • AREMA, Chapter 12, “Rail Transit.” • The National Electrical Safety Code. IEEE Standard 80 (1) deals with the recommended practice for safety grounding in high voltage AC substations, but it was never specifically intended to apply to situations outside of AC substations such as we might find in a light rail environment. For example, tolerable limits for children in bare feet, for guide dogs for the blind, or tolerable limits for people with medical conditions or implanted electronic devices such as pacemakers are not considered. The National Electrical Code prescribes a minimum standard for electrical design that should be incorporated into the design of the TES wherever possible. HUMAN BODY CURRENT—ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT MODEL As shown in Figure 1, the human body electrical circuit includes the feet contact resistance, R1, and the internal body resistance, RB. A bare foot contact resistance is equal to 3ρS ohms, where ρS is the surface resistivity in ohm-meters underneath the foot. For the touch potential circuit, we have two feet in parallel, the contact resistance R1 is, therefore, equal to 1.5ρS. The touch potential is: ETOUCH = I(RB + 1.5ρS) (1) 652 Transportation Research Circular E-C058: 9th National Light Rail Transit Conference FIGURE 1 Human body current electrical model. For the step potential circuit, we have two feet in series, the contact resistance R1 is, therefore, equal to 6ρS. And the step potential is: ESTEP = I(RB + 6ρS) (2) For the touch potential, consider: R1 = 1.5ρS = 1.5 × 100 ohms = 150 ohms, based upon ρS = 100 ohm-meters for surface resistivity of wet concrete floor. RB = 1000 ohms (internal body resistance for an average person, per IEEE Standard 80) The touch potential Equation 1 becomes: ETOUCH = I(1000 + 150) = 1150 × I (3) The current passing through the body is: I = ETOUCH amperes (4) I = 2.0 ma (minimum perception)[2], ETOUCH = 2.3V Pham, Thomas, and Stinger 653 I = 60.0 ma (maximum threshold)[2], ETOUCH = 69.0V I = 80.0 ma (maximum allowable)[2], ETOUCH = 92.0V Limiting the electric current passing through the human body can enhance personnel safety. There are two ways to achieve this: a) reduce the touch potential, E, to the lowest practical values such as 70 V or less; and b) increase contact resistance for foot and hand. It should be mentioned that the human body current obtained from the above equation depends on the surface resistivity (ρS). If the person is standing on an insulating pad with much higher resistivity, then the body current will be much less. It has been shown that ventricular fibrillation is not only a function of the current magnitude but also the duration of the exposure. It has been shown experimentally that ventricular fibrillation which appears in animals comparable in size to human beings invariably leads to death (3). It was concluded that ventricular fibrillation could be regarded as the only cause of death from electric shock. There are several equations developed by researchers to calculate maximum allowable non-fibrillating AC current. However, the most acceptable at this time is the Dalziel’s equation for a body weight of 50 kg (1): INFac = 116 (5) √ t where t is the shock duration in seconds and I is the AC current in milliamperes. Recently, the IEEE Standard 80-2000 recommends the following equation for a body weight of 70 kg: INFac = 157 (6) √ t It is interesting to note that for DC systems, the maximum allowable non-fibrillating DC current is about three times that for AC current and is given by the following equation (4): INFdc = 348 (7) √ t For a modern LRT system, t is in the range of 5 s for train accelerating conditions and about 5 cycles (0.08 s) for high speed DC feeder breaker tripping time under short circuit condition. Thus, using Equation 7, the tolerable body current under DC fault condition is INFdc = 348 = 348 = 1.2 A √ t √ 0.08 654 Transportation Research Circular E-C058: 9th National Light Rail Transit Conference STRAY CURRENT AND TRACK-TO-EARTH POTENTIAL To illustrate the basic components affecting the levels of stray currents generated by a dc traction power system, a simple radial feed circuit model is shown in Figure 2. This model assumes that the resistance of the OCS to ground is very high and there is no coupling between the positive circuit and earth. From this model, the three basic components which control the level of leakage stray currents to ground are (5) IT the train current, VN the voltage developed across the negative circuit resistance (RN), and RL & RS the effective resistance between the negative circuit and earth. Although these three items are interrelated as described later in subsequent parts of this paper, each item must be considered separately. The magnitude of current required to operate the train (IT) is power dependent; for example, for a stated power requirement to provide for a certain acceleration under a given set of conditions, the current required will vary depending on the voltage. Hence, an increase in operating voltage would allow a proportional decrease in the current, and would be a benefit to stray current limitation. Most modern DC transit systems are designed for the 600 to 800 Vdc range. One consideration in maintaining train operating voltage within acceptable limits and minimizing the generation of stray currents as the vehicle moves away from the power source is to keep the substation as close to the point of maximum load as possible. This may require the use of more substations than otherwise would be necessary. The second factor requiring consideration is the resistance of the negative return circuit, referred to as RN in Figure 2. Stray current