Research on the strengthening measures of lightning protection for the traction substation

Research purposes: With the development of the electrified railways, lightning is one of the important factors which endangering safe and reliable operation of the traction substation. The lightning accident of the traction substation was occurred from time to time. In order to improve the traction substation's lightning protection level, it is studied according to the lightning accident of a 220 kV traction substation. It's a typical accident and the equipments of the traction substation are damaged seriously. This study aims to analyze the cause and the process of this accident based on the calculation of the lightning current amplitude, lightning overvoltage, arcing rate, and the short circuit current, give the strengthening measures of lightning protection to avoid the similar accident. Research conclusions: (1) The direct lightning stroke will be led into the substation when the lightning strikes the overhead return line if it's installed too high and the arrester will be destroyed if the overhead feeder line isn't installed incoming protection line. (2) Some proposals can improve the substation's lightning protection lever, such as installing the incoming lightning protection line of the feeder, strengthening the grounding line, researching the bus-bar protection relay, and so on. (3) The research results are mainly used for optimization program and design fields on the traction substation lightning protection. ©, 2015, Editorial Department of Journal of Railway Engineering Society. All right reserved.