Grounding and Lightning Arrestors: Chapter - Four Four

9/13/2014
Addis Ababa University

Addis Ababa Institute of Technology
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
CHAPTER - Four
Grounding and Lightning arrestors

4.1. Introduction
 Electrical connection of neutral point of a supply system or the non

current carrying part of electrical equipments to the general mass
of earth in such a manner that all times on immediate discharge of
electrical energy
 Why is the practice of earthing electrical system?
 To provide a sufficiently low impedance
 To retain system voltages with in reasonable limits under fault
condition ( Lightning\, switching surges, or contact with higher
voltages system)
 The potential of an installation is measured with respect to the

general mass of earth or commonly called Earth
ECEG 4401 | Electrical Installation | By Amare A. 2013/14
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Earthing Conductors:
 A protecting conductor connecting the main earthing terminal of

an installation to an earth electrode or other means of earthing.

Bonding:
 Is the practice of intentionally

electrically connecting all exposed
metallic parts not designed to carry
electricity in a room or building to
protect from electric shock.
Equipotential Bonding
 Electrical Connection maintaining

various exposed conductive parts
and extraneous conductive parts as
substantially the same bonding
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Bonding Conductor:
 A protective conductor providing equipotential bonding
 There are different earthing arrangements:

 IT system
 TT system
 TN system
 TN-C-S

 The first letter defines the situation of the neutral point in

relation to earth
T: Solidily earthed to neutral
I : unearthed or high impendence earth to neutral
 The Second letter defines the connection method of electrical

installation exposed conductive path
T: The exposed conductive parts are interconnected and
solidly earthed, regardless of whether the neutral part is
earthed or not
N : The exposed conductive parts are directly connected to
neutral conductor
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 The third and Fourth letter indicates the arrangement of

earthed supply conductor system
C: Combined
N : Separate
IT system earthing
 The neutral is earthed or unearthed via high impendence

 An impendence b/n 1 kohm and 2 kohm are frequently used

TT Earthing system
 The neutral is directly earthed,
 The exposed conductive parts of the loads are
interconnected , either together or in groups or individually
earthed
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TN Earthing system
 The neutral point is directly earthed
 The exposed conductive parts of the loads are connected to
the neutral conductor
 There are two possible
 There are two possible system depending on whether the
neutral conductor (N) and protective conductor (PE) are on
the same or not
TN – C Earthing system
 The Neutral and protective conductors form a single
conductor called PEN
 It is advised to connect PEN to ground

TN – s Earthing system
 The Neutral and protective conductors are separate
 It is advised to regularly to connect the protective conductor
to earth
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TN – C –S Earthing system
 With this arrangement the main distributor neutral is
also used to return earth fault current arising in
consumer installation safety to the source. To achieve
this the distribution will provide consumer earthing
terminal which is linked to the coming neutral
conductor

Grounding Design consideration
System Earthing
 The system earthing, that is to say the connection between
the transformer neutral points and earth, is of high
importance to the behavior of a power system during an
unsymmetrical fault
Equipment Earthing
 Earthing all metal work of electrical equipments earthing
other than which are normally live or current carrying.
Soil resistivity
 The resistance to earth of an electrode of given dimension
dependent on the electrical resistivity of the soil in which it is
installed
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Element of Electrode
Electrode
Driven to earth wider earth contact area usually 1 to 2 m

length and 16 mm diameter will give relatively low
resistance

Plate Electrode
 They offer a better grounding system than electrodes
are generally used in permanent communication and
computer sites
Iron or steel type: Not less than 6.3mm thickness

( B/s Iron rusts)
Copper type: Not less than 3.15mm thickness
 Plate electrodes shall be

the size of at least 60cm X
60cm
 Plate electrodes shall be
buried at a depth of not
less than 1.5m
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Soil resistivity testing

 The resistance of an electrode highly influenced by a
resistivity of the soil
 Soil resistivity is the measure of a resistance b/n opposite
sides of a cube of soil with a side dimension of 1 meter
Where : ρ resistivity in Ω –m
l length in m
l
R A Area in mm2
A
 Soil resistivity values widely depending up on the type of
terrain
Eg: silty on a river bank 1.5 Ω –m
Dry sand or granite 10,000 Ω –m

Factors affecting resistivity
 Type of earth ( Clay, loam, sand stone, granite)

 Stratification : layer of different soil
 Moisture content ( M  ρ  )
 Temperature
 Chemical composition and concentration of dissolved
salt
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Type of soil or water Typical Usual limit

resistivity (Ω –m)
( Ω –m)
Sea water 2 0.1 to 10
Clay 40 8 to 70
Ground well and spring water 50 10 to 150
Clay and sand mixture 100 40 to 300

Sand 2000 200 to 3000
Solid granite 25,000 10,000 to 50, 000
Ice 100,000 10,000 to 100,000

Soil resistivity testing Methods

Wenner Method
 It requires the longest cable lay out , largest electrode
spreads and for a large spacing one person per
electrode is necessary to complete the measurement
I
V
V   2d
d d d I
  2dR
Where d spacing
b/n in m
ECEG 4401 | Electrical Installation | By Amare A. 2013/14 18
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Schumbefer array
 The outer electrode are moved four or Five times of
each move of the inner electrodes
 Lowe voltage reading are obtained during this method
I
d 2 R
V 
2a
d a a d
d 2 R

x
where, x  2a
ECEG 4401 | Electrical Installation | By Amare A. 2013/14 19

Driven rod Method

 The driven rod method called three pin or Fall – 0f –
potential method
 It is normally suitable for use in circumstances such as
transmission line structure earths or areas of difficult
terrain
I
2bR
V 
8b
0.62d ln( )
D
Where: b The driven
d electrode length
b R=V/I
D diameter of
ECEG 4401 | Electrical Installation | By Amare A. 2013/14 driven rod 20
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Protection against electric shock

Direct contact
 Refers to a person coming in
contact with a conductor which is
live in normal circumstance
Indirect contact
 Refers to a person coming in
contact with an exposed
conductive parts of which in not
normally alive bus has become
alive accidentally


Direct contact
 By means of barrier enclosure ( Key,
 By mean of obstacles (
 By replacing out of arm’s reach
 By using Residual current device ( RCD) – fast sensitive
tripping device
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Indirect contact
 1st Level protection:
Earthing all exposed conductive – parts electrical equipments
[ Equipotential bonding ]
 2nd Level protection:
Automatic disconnection of the supply


Indirect contact
 1st Level protection:
Earthing all exposed conductive – parts electrical equipments
[ Equipotential bonding ]
 2nd Level protection:
Automatic disconnection of the supply
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Protection against lightning

 Lightning can be linked to distrubtive electrical discharge due
to the dielectric breakdown of the air between the clouds or
between clouds and the ground.
 Breakdown, which is visible in the form of lightning flash, it
accompanied by a sound wave, thunder
Types of lightning
within cloud
cloud – to – cloud
cloud - to - ground

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Thank you!
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Addis Ababa University