Fault location method for distribution network Considering distortion of traveling wavefronts.

• A novel detection method for detecting the initial time of traveling waves based on RLMD-TEO-IDR. • The RLMD method is used to reduce the influence of the noise signal and to maximally retain the characteristic components of traveling wave signal. • The TEO method is utilized for extracting the abrupt properties of the high-frequency modal signals. • The proposed incremental difference ratio algorithm(IDR) can effectively detect the initial time of traveling wave signal. • A fault location method based on three-terminal fault matrix is proposed, which achieves the fault location through the gradual reduction of the fault area range. To reduce the distortion effects of traveling wavefronts for fault location in distribution networks, a novel fault traveling wave detection method employing Robust Local Mean Decomposition (RLMD), Teager Energy Operator (TEO) and Incremental Difference Ratio (IDR) is proposed. According to the dispersion characteristic of traveling waves with multi-branch lines, the sampled faulty traveling wave signal is filtered using the RLMD method, then the TEO is used to determine the first half-wave time interval of the fault traveling wave. Finally, the IDR is proposed to detect the initial moment of the faulty traveling wave. And according to the fault traveling wave transmission path of multi-branch lines, the complex multi-branch line fault location problem is transformed into a three-terminal fault location problem. The fault traveling wave location method is proposed based on the three-terminal fault matrix, which achieves the fault location through the gradual reduction of the fault area range. Simulation and experiment results indicate that the method proposed in this paper can effectively calculate the arrival time of faulty traveling waves, and is more suitable for fault detection in multi-branch distribution lines compared to existing methods. The new proposed faulty location method can achieve reliable location to reduce location errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]