Customer Reviews

Protective Relaying (Power Engineering (Willis))

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In order to appreciate this book, one must understand the history behind power system protective relaying. As the previous reviewers have mentioned, the two classic bibles in protective relaying is the Westinghouse Protective Relaying book and the Westinghouse T & D book. Lewis Blackburn put the former book together while he worked at Westinghouse and he had a hand in the second book as well. My father attended the Westinghouse training courses in the 1950's and his instructor was Lew Blackburn. Over time, Mr. Blackburn became a family friend and I grew up listening to them talk about the electric power industry and learned about the subject at the feet of the master. Even though I went into motors instead of relaying, I still enjoyed reading this book.

After Mr. Blackburn retired from Westinghouse, he became a consultant and proceeded to put the material in this book together. It was a labor of love, for a lot of people have said that the practice of protective relying is like black magic because there are many correct ways to protect a system, they all have problems but it is up to the practitioner to determine the best solution for a given situation. Mr. Blackburn poured his years of experience and expertise into this book. He tried to do this in a systematic manner in order to reduce the amount of ambiguity usually associated with the black arts. I believe he has succeeded.

I would agree with the others that the second edition was a letdown from the first, but then again, most first editions are more informative because authors wrote "their" book with the first edition, the following editions are ususally to answer the critics and publishers.

In working through the examples, I found that Blackburn decided to remove the details for the solutions of the example problems and just state that intermediate steps are "easily calculated." The answers are still given, but this caused me a problem when I was working the examples and didn't get the answer he presented. I had to refer back to the first edition to catch my error.

I would recommend keeping the first edition if you have it, and purchasing this one since he updates the chapter on generator protection (according to the 2nd ed preface).

Being in System Protection for the past 6 years I have collected quite a nice library of books related to my field of protective relaying. I have used Blackburn's book until the pages are dog eared. It is generally the first book I grab off the shelf to start reviewing a protection topic or to refresh my memory. Blackburn did an excellent job with straight forward practical examples and applications...as you might expect from one of the masters in the field. This book along with the old Westinghouse Applied Protective Relaying book (relaying Bible) and the ABB T&D book (formerly Westinghouse book) cover the majority of topics a protection enginerd needs.

This is a bit of a rough effort, and won't be making the Best Seller List, but how many books on this subject do? It seems like a must-have. I would only urge that unless you already know 3/4 of the material, you go through something smoother, such as Power System Analysis by Gross, to get yourself up to that point, because you're likely to be needlessly uncomfortable otherwise. Aside from that, this book will be greatly valued by anyone with serious interest.

I have found this book to be very helpful while resolving problems associated with installation and startup of a small generation facility. I would have been lost and could not have contributed to the solution of problems had I not studied this book in my spare time. The senior engineers also stated that this was a very good book (it cleared up a few things for them).

I have been using this book from 1st edition up to the third and it provides both a theoretical and application background so the reader can use it as the base to go for more specific info or for manufacturers applications guides.