B3-Seismic resilience of interconnected substation equipment: Lessons learned from a comprehensive test and modelling program

Vulnerability of substations in earthquake-prone areas can result in major power outages, severe economic loss, and disruption of post-earthquake response. Past earthquakes have exposed such vulnerability, prompting systematic research and leading to the development of recommended practices for seismic design of substation equipment (IEEE 693). Protective systems such as base isolation have also been deployed. Despite these advancements, some issues pertaining to seismic response of substations demand further attention, one of which is the influence of interconnection, particularly through flexible conductors. This paper describes a comprehensive research program undertaken to characterize the role of interconnection by flexible conductors on seismic response of substation equipment. The research program consists of four components: 1 – Dynamic tests on individual, 2 – Full-scale interconnected system tests on an earthquake simulation, 3 – Computational modelling. 4 – Model-in-the-loop testing. Many findings reported in this paper are new, and have not been previously reported in either the seismic structural dynamics or substation systems literature.