OFFSHORE EARTHING, A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

Author : S.G.LAWTON Shearwater Alliance

1. INTRODUCTION The various methods and philosophies available for grounding electrical systems are diverse and offer the designer a plethora of choice. As a topic, not only is earthing arguably the most openly debated amongst engineers, but is possibly the least understood of all the electrical engineering subjects. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the offshore field, where the proliferation of earth bonding, particularly on equipment securely connected to substantial steel structures, has been far in excess of conventional onshore industrial practice. Against this background the paper attempts to offer a practical insight on the characteristics of offshore installations, outlining the influence exerted by the steel structure on the impedance and return path taken by power frequency earth fault current.

2. EARTHING FUNDAMENTALS The primary reasons for earthing and bonding electrical systems are: To establish a reference frame limiting the maximum phase to earth voltage. i) Provide a path of sufficiently low impedance to allow circuit protection to detect and switch out the ii) faulty circuit. iii) To prevent life threatening voltages from developing. There are numerous methods for establishing the reference connection to earth. Standard offshore practice is to earth the MV generator neutrals via neutral earthing resistors to limit the potential damage from earth fault current. LV distribution earthing follows conventional onshore practice where the transformer neutrals are directly earthed to the platform steel deck. For operational reasons, drilling systems feeding SCR controlled dc motors are usually floating with respect to earth. Other necessary precautions, such as equipotential bonding, screening, and segregating power frequency from low current instrument systems provide adequate safety features limiting the effects from electrical faults, EMC and static.
3. THE EOUIPOTENTIAL EARTH PLANE Given that an offshore platform is constructed almost entirely from carbon steels, it might at first appear trivial to think that there could be many circumstances giving rise to a significant difference in potential from one end of the structure to the other. Although this is the general case, the actual characteristics resulting from the flow of fault current need to be understood in order that installation resources are applied to best ecconomic advantage. In order to fully understand the behaviour of a steel deck when carrying ac current, a study { 1} was carried out which predicted the change in deck potential between two earth bosses for current flowing into one boss and exiting the other. When the complete circuit, comprising two bosses and the flat deck carrying several thousand amperes of ac current was evaluated, a voltage contour similar to Fig.1 was obtained.

NB. In this example the scale on the vertical axis

---___

Y l
JI

75

im

is indicative only. The solid line indicates the theoretical voltage gradient directly between two bosses, which in this study are separated by 100 units of distance. From the curve it is clear that the highest rate of change of voltage occurs close to a boss. This is not unexpected, as the current has only a small annulus through which it can flow it sees a relatively high impedance.

Fig. 1 This result was verified experimentally, ac current was injected between two bosses and the potential drop directly between the two measured with a high impedance oscilloscope. Although an estimate for the deck

311

impedance could be made from these results, about 0.09 "metre. at 60 Hz, this figure is not relevant for practical applications as it takes no account of the mutual inductive effect of flux coupling between the supply and return currents. The important result obtained from this work being the voltage profile relative to a boss on an axis in parallel with, but separated a few metres away from the direct axis between the two bosses. In Fig.1, the broken line bisecting the voltage contour between the two bosses denotes the potential change relative to the left-hand boss. This result shows that by moving a short distance away from either boss, only a relatively small potential difference will be encountered. Consequently any interference to adjacent instrument earthing, for example from power frequency fault current entering or exiting the platform deck, will also be very small. This effect, which was verified by practical measurement has been used to simplify the installation of instrument Clean and ZS system earthing. By permitting local bonding in instrument equipment rooms, the need to run separate earth conductors to one specific reference point on the installation, as is the conventional practice, has been eliminated The equipotential nature of large steel decks, as indicated by the almost horizontal line in Fig.1 being the equivalent of an independent earthing system. A nominal 5m minimum separation between power and instrument earth bosses has been used for several years by the author's Company without any adverse effects being reported.

4. IMPEDANCE OF AN OFFSHORE PLATFORM Intuitively one would expect the deck and structure of an offshore platform to have intrinsically low impedance. Ductor measurements from one comer of a platform to the opposite end indicate at most only a i r mdata for fault calculations most design engineers would tend to few milliohms. In the absence of any f ignore the structure or assume some value of lumped impedance. Other considerations involve the effect of changing cable types from wire armour to braid and the consequence, if any, of fault current flowing in the platform structure. Before attempting to resolve any of these questions a zero sequence impedance model {2,3,4),comprising a source cable with an earth return via integral armour and adjacent steelwork was developed, from which a series of test measurements were devised. Based on this model, shown in Fig.2, measurements were made both onshore and offshore; At 60 H z ,the structure zero sequence impedance Re + jXa-e, for the installation method and cable size quoted, has the value: Offshore Massive Steel Structure Re+jXa-e = 0.20 + j0.3 mWm (Cable Tray & Ladder) (4c 185 sqmm cable) (0.36msuM) Living Quarters Module Re+jXa-e= 0.40 + j0.7 mWm (Cable Ladder) (3c 35 sqmm cable) (0.81/mSZm) Onshore Industrial Installation Re+jXa-e = 0.24 + j0.7mWm (Heavy Duty Tray) (3c.35 sqmm cable) (0.74mRlm)

The single phase zero sequence circuit for the cable and earth return i s shown below:

m
Rc

Ra

iXc-a

iXa+

Re

Zero Sequence

Impedance

Rc = conductor ac resistance jXc-a = conductor to armour mutual reactance Ra = cable armour ac resistance Re = structure or cable support ac resistance jXa-e = cable armour to structure mutual reactance Cable core to structure reactance jXc-e = jXc-a+jXa-e For unarmoured cables Ra = zero

Fig.2

NB. The model in Fig.2 has been expanded in appendix 1 to illustrate the effect of a separate earth conductor installed along the same cable route.

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The derived offshore impedance of 0.36mWm can be compared directly with the self impedance of steel plate; quoted in Section 3 as 0.09mWm. The proximity effect of the source cable has effectively increased the self impedance of the plate by a factor of 4. In 1984 a report was published by the ERA (84-0067) on the impedance of SWA cables for use in conjunction with BS7671 (IEEWiring Regulations). The impedance values listed in the report were used to compare the cable impedance data extracted from the offshore measurements, which for a 4 core 185 sqmm cable corrected to 50 Hz gave the following comparison: ER4 value: Rc+Ra+jXc-a = 0.7 + j0.27 mWm Rc+Ra+jXc-a = 0.7 + j0.23 mR/m Authors value: The close correlation between these two results provides a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the zero sequence impedance values for the structure/cable support systems listed above. Using the impedance model it was possible to calculate the current distribution in the cable armour and external return path and then compare these values with those measured on site. Fig.3 below shows the comparison for a 4c 185 sqmm PVC/SWA/pVC cable. The plot shows two sets of curves. The top two are the measured (broken line) and calculated currents flowing in a path external to the cable. The lower curves are the measured (broken line) and calculated currents in the cable SWA. The close correlation of these curves, particularly for the external path, provides corroboration for the use and accuracy of the impedance model. The slight divergence of the lower curves is due in part to not fully allowing for the changing magnetic properties of the SWA as current increases. The ERA work shows that for currents greater than full load, the cable impedance reduces to its initial value and remains sensibly constant thereafter.

Fig3
Fig.4 below shows the equivalent current distribution for 3c 35 sqmm CSP/GSWB/CSP cable.

U 0 1 m . 0 1

In this example most of the return current flows via a preferential external path. The large difference in current distribution, compared with the results for SWA cables in Fig.3, is wholly due to the increase in ac resistance of the braid in Comparison with SWA and the external path. Which in this particular case was heavy duty, galvanised steel tray. A similar result was observed at other test sites where cable ladder was used to support GSWB cables. The marginally greater divergence between the calculated and measured values for the external path is believed due to the comparatively smaller quantity of steel adjacent to the cable when compared with the offshore situation.

Fig.4

3 I3

Cablesize sqmm

GSWB
44

Separate Core

Structure

I
This table was developed to compare the maximum cable lengths that could be used, in conjunction with various types of protective conductor, for the appropriate BS 88 circuit protection fuse to operate and clear an earth fault within 0.4 seconds. As the source and distribution impedance is unique to particular installations, the table should not be regarded as a general reference.

2.5
4

36

6 10 16

50
29 33 20 26 17 25

65 86 94

130

92
110 116 121

25
C

168 182 173 200 198

35 50 70

192
177 168

119

131

From the table it is evident that galvanised wire braid is a poor earth return conductor. Equally the structure, or metallic cable support system, provides similar or better characteristics than an equivalent copper earth conductor. The important observation is that the structure has a low, but still significant value of impedance. Having established the ac resistance, mutual reactance and magnetic properties of the circuit it was possible, using simple two conductor models { 5 1, to estimate the physical separation between the cable and external path. Similarly the skin depth and effective width of the external conductor could also be calculated. The adjacent sketch shows the result for the 4 core, 185 sqmm cable in Fig.3,

5. THE EARTH RETURN PATH A theoretical analysis of the current returning via non-magnetic steel plate positioned close to the source conductor { 6 } ,shows that a current distribution will occur which satisfies the expression: For a current of I amperes Conductor Separation, h mm Current Density = I. amp/" Width of External Current Path x mm IT(?+h2)
This has been verified experimentally and a very close correlation found between measured and predicted values. The effect of using magnetically saturating ferrous material introduces insignificant errors.

For the physical arrangement shown in the above sketch:

An ac current flowing in the conductor suspended 20 mm above a wide conducting plate carrying the return current, results in a theoretical current distribution within the plate shown by Fig.5. The bulk of the return current flows in a section approximately 2 0 0 " wide, a figure calculated from data comparable with the 163" measured offshore. The dotted line is for a conductor separation of 50mrn.

Consequently it appears the effect of mutual coupling, between the magnetic fields of the supply & return current in adjacent bulk steel, results in a return path which is contiguous, as far as practicable, to the source conductor.

3 I4

APPENDIX 1

FRec

I
Rc jXc-a jXa-ec jXec-e

tRe

Consider the following example:

4c. 185 sqmm cu.PVC/SWA/PVC cable installed on heavy duty galvanised steel tray. 1c 185 sqmm cu PVC earth continuity cable installed on same tray. Cable armour, cable tray and earth conductor electrically bonded at both ends of the circuit.

CableEarth Conductor Separation

O.lm 0.8m 1.Om

Mutual Reactance IjXc-ec]

0.322 0.610 0.643

Mutual Reactance IjXa-ec]

0.092 0.380 0.413

Earth Conductor Impedance [Rec + jXa-ec] 0.343

0.621 0.654

HD Tray Impedance [Re + jXec-e]

0.268 0.268 0.268

Cable Armour Resistance Ra 0.605

0.605 0.605

Provided the installation conditions specified above are maintained the return earth fault current will divide in direct proportion to the impedance ratio of the cable armour, earth conductor, and HD tray. From practical measurements it appears that routing the earth conductor away from the HD tray results in the circuit shown in Fig.2, i.e. the earth conductor plays very little part in the return current path in spite of the electrical bonding. For increasing separation and eliminating the HD metallic tray removes the two circuit elements (Re + jXec-e). 1.5m 0.662 0.432 0.672 0.605

2.0m 3.0m

4.0m 10.0m

0.698 0.749 0.786 0.900

0.468 0.519 0.556 0.670

0.708 0.758 0.795 0.908

0.605 0.605 0.605 0.605

NB.

= cable conductor ac resistance Rc = cable armour ac resistance Ra = earth conductor ac resistance Rec . = effective HD tray ac resistance Re = cable conductor to armour mutual reactance jXc-a = armour to earth conductor mutual reactance jXa-ec = earth conductor to HD tray mutual reactance jXec-e jXc-a + jXa-ec = jXc-ec cable conductor to earth conductor mutual reactance.

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REFERENCES
1.

Earthing on Offshore Platforms. P.Stewart. Imperial College. 1988. Wave Propagation in Overhead Wires With Ground Retum. J.R.Carson. Bell System Technology Journal. 1926 Power System Analysis. J.R.Mortlock and M.W.Humphrey Davis. Chapman & Hall Ltd. 1952. Circuit Analysis of A.C. Power Systems Vol. 1. Edith Clarke. John Wiley & Sons. 1948. Advanced Electrical Engineering. A.H.Morton. Pitman & Sons. 1966. Impedance of Power Circuits With Retum Through a CompIex Structure. J.Loughnane. IEEManuscript. ISBN 020662

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0 1997 The Institution of Electrical Engineers. Printed and published by the IEE, Savoy Place, London WCPR OBL, UK.