ASANSOL INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT – POLYTECHNIC

ASANSOL

Pre Test:

1. What is grounding?
2. What is the difference between grounding and earthing?

Introduction:

The process of transferring the immediate discharge of the electrical energy directly to the earth by the help of the low resistance
wire is known as the electrical earthing. The electrical earthing is done by connecting the non-current carrying part of the equipment
or neutral of supply system to the ground.

Mostly, the galvanised iron is used for the earthing. The earthing provides the simple path to the leakage current. The shortcircuit
current of the equipment passes to the earth which has zero potential. Thus, protects the system and equipment from damage.

Main Body:

Introduction to Earthing:

 In an electrical installation an earthing system or grounding system connects specific parts of that installation with the Earth's
conductive surface for safety and functional purposes.
 The point of reference is the Earth's conductive surface. The choice of earthing system can affect
the safety and electromagnetic compatibility of the installation.
 Regulations may identify special cases for earthing in mines, in patient care areas, or in hazardous areas of industrial plants.
 In addition to electric power systems, other systems may require grounding for safety or function. Tall structures may
have lightning rods as part of a system to protect them from lightning strikes. Telegraph lines may use the Earth as one
conductor of a circuit, saving the cost of installation of a return wire over a long circuit. Radio antennas may require
particular grounding for operation, as well as to control static electricity and provide lightning protection.
Importance of Earthing:

Protective earthing
 An earth ground connection of the exposed conductive parts of electrical equipment helps protect from electric shock by
keeping the exposed conductive surface of connected devices close to earth potential, when a failure of electrical insulation
occurs.
 When a fault occurs, current flows from the power system to earth.
 The current may be high enough to operate the over current protection fuse or circuit breaker, which will then interrupt the
circuit.
 To ensure the voltage on exposed surfaces is not too high, the impedance (resistance) of the connection to earth must be
kept low relative to the normal circuit impedance.
 An alternative to protective earthing of exposed surfaces is a design with "double insulation" or other precautions, such that a
single failure or highly probable combination of failures cannot result in contact between live circuits and the surface. For
example, a hand-held power tool might have an extra system of electrical insulation between internal components and the
case of the tool, so that even if the insulation for the motor or switch fails, the tool case is not energized.
Functional earthing
 A functional earth connection serves a purpose other than electrical safety, and may carry current as part of normal operation.
 For example, in a single-wire earth return power distribution system, the earth forms one conductor of the circuit and carries
all the load current.
Step potential and Touch potential:
When a fault occurs, the fault current flow to the ground due to which the potential gradient near the electrical equipment
developed. This potential gradient may affect a person in two ways, either by step-to-step contact or by touch contact.

Step-Potential – Step potential is the potential difference between the feet of a person standing on the floor of the substation, with 0.5
m spacing between the one step, during the flow of fault current through the ground system.

Touch-Potential – Touch potential is a potential difference between the fingers of a raising hand touching the faulted structure and
the feet of the person standing on substation floor. The person should not get a shock even if the ground structure is carrying fault
current, i.e.; the touch potential should be very small.
 The resistance of the human body is highly variable, and the current that may pass through the body depends on the resistance of the
body and the position in which it touches the ground. The resistance of the body is taken as 1000 ohms.

Factors affecting Earth resistance:

Resistance of earth is the resistance between infinite earth and earth electrode. This depends upon mainly three factors
1. The resistance of the electrode itself,
2. The contact resistance between electrode surface and soil,
3. The resistivity of soil between the electrode and infinite earth.
The first two factors can be taken as negligible compared to third factor, i.e. resistivity of soil. This is the reason, we generally
consider resistivity of the soil only, when we deal with resistance of earth.

Again the resistivity of the soil depends upon the following factors,

1. The electrical conductivity, offered by a soil mainly due to electrolysis.

2. The chemical composition of the soil is also responsible for its resistivity.
3. The grain size, uniformity of grain distribution and packing of grains in the soil (i.e. inter grain distance) also the factors for
resistivity because this factors control the moisture holding capacity of the soil.
4. The temperature of the soil can also be a factor but when it is very close to freezing temperature. Below, 0°C, the water contained
in the soil begins to freeze, which largely affects the electrolysis process in the soil. It is found that, just below the freezing point
the resistivity of soil or earth resistivity is tremendously increased.
5. So moist soil, which also can hold the moisture throughout the year is preferable for installing earthing system.
6. Wet marshy land, loamy soil land, arable land, clayey land or land with loam mixed with small quantities of sand, gravel and
stones are best choice for the purpose.
7. Land with entirely dry sand, gravel chalk, limestone, granite, any very stony ground should be avoided.
8. Sometimes it is found that the earth resistance does not improve enough even the electrodes are buried well enough inside the
soil. This is because the soil resistivity is very high at those locations. This soil resistivity can be improved locally by filling the
surrounding of electrode by normal salt or by any other similar substance.
There are some highly soluble substances which when dissolve in water, produce highly conductive solution by electrolysis. Common
salt (Nacl) is mostly used for the purpose. When the surrounding of the electrode in the soil is filled by common salt, the earth
resistivity of the electrode that is the resistance between electrode and infinite earth becomes significantly low. Sodium carbonate
(Na2CO3) and copper sulphate (CuS04) salt can also be used for the purpose. Sometime the salt is applied with adequate quantity of
charcoal, because charcoal like substances can effectively hold moisture to keep the surrounding wet.

Methods of Earthing:

There are several methods of earthing like wire or strip earthing, rod earthing, pipe earthing, plate earthing or earthing through water
mains. Most commonly used methods of earthing are pipe earthing and plate earthing. These methods are explained below in details.

Earthing Mat
Earthing mat is made by joining the number of rods through copper conductors. It reduced the overall grounding resistance. Such type
of system helps in limiting the ground potential. Earthing mat is mostly used in a placed where the large fault current is to be
experienced. While designing an earth mat, the following step is taken into consideration.

 In a fault condition, the voltage between the ground and the ground surface should not be dangerous to a person who may touch the
noncurrent-carrying conducting surface of the electrical system.
 The uninterrupted fault current that may flow into the earthing mat should be large enough to operate the protective relay. The
resistance of the ground is low to allow the fault current to flow through it.The resistance of the mat should not be of such a magnitude
as to permit the flow of fatal current in the live body.
 The design of grounding mat should be such that the step voltage should be less than the permissible value which would depend on the
resistivity of the soil and fault required for isolating the faulty plant from the live system.
Earthing Electrode
In this type of earthing any wire, rod, pipe, plate or a bundle of conductors, inserted in the ground horizontally or vertically. In
distributing systems, the earth electrode may consist of a rod, about 1 meter in length and driven vertically into the ground. In
generating substations, grounding mat is used rather than individual rods.

Pipe Earthing
This is the most common and best system of earthing as compared to other systems suitable for the same earth and moisture
conditions. In this method the galvanized steel and perforated pipe of approved length and diameter in place upright in a permanently
wet soil, as shown below. The size of the pipe depends upon the current to be carried and type of soil.
Normally, the size of the pipe uses for earthing is of diameter 40 mm and 2.5 meters in length for ordinary soil or of greater length in
case of dry and rocky soil. The depth at which the pipe must be buried depends on the moistures of the ground.

The pipe is placed at 3.75 meters. The bottom of the pipe is surrounded by small pieces of coke or charcoal at a distance of about 15
cm. Alternate layers of coke and salt are used to increase the effective area of the earth and to decrease the earth resistance
respectively.

Another pipe of 19 mm diameter and minimum length 1.25 meters is connected at the top of GI pipe through reducing socket.

During summer the moisture in the soil decreases, which causes an increase in earth resistance. So a cement concrete work is done to
keep the water arrangement accessible, and in summer to have an effective earth, 3 or 4 buckets of water are put through the funnel
connected to 19 mm diameter pipe, which is further connected to GI pipe.

The earth wire either GI or a strip of GI wire of sufficient cross section to carry faulty current safely is carried in a GI pipe of diameter
12 mm at a depth of about 60cm from the ground.

Plate Earthing
In Plate Earthing an earthing plate either of copper of dimension 60cm×60cm×3m of galvanized iron of dimensions 60 cm× 60 cm×6
mm is buried into the ground with its face vertical at a depth of not less than 3 meters from ground level.
The earth plate is inserted into auxiliary layers of coke and salt for a minimum thickness of 15 cm. The earth wire (GI or copper wire)
is tightly bolted to an earth plate with the help of nut or bolt. The copper plate and copper wire are usually not employed for grounding
purposes because of their higher cost.

Substation earthing:

The points we must earth in an electrical substation.

1. The neutral point of different voltage levels.

2. Metallic enclosure of all current carrying equipment.
3. Framework of all current carrying equipment.
4. All the metallic structure even not associated with current carrying equipment.
Method of Earthing
 All the points to be earthed with earthing grid with corrosion resistance mild still rods must be connected. The connection
rods must be buried minimum 600 mm below the ground level.

 If these horizontally buried rods cross a cable trench, road, underground pipework, or rail track the rods should cross the
barriers through at least 300 mm below the bottom of the barriers. Although we use Mild Steel rods for connecting earth grid
below the ground level but we normally use mild steel flats for same above ground level.

 We call the connection between different earthing points and earning grid as riser. We normally use ms flats in portion of the
risers above ground level. The rod portion of the risers below the ground level is identical to the rod conductors use for
creating main earth grid. We should connect all the steel structures with earth grid by at least two risers. In this case one riser
must come from the rod of earthing grid in x direction and other from y direction.

 We also connect the earthing points of all equipment in same fashion. We connect all the isolator mechanism boxes with
individual auxiliary earth mat and each auxiliary earth mat to main earth grid. We place each auxiliary earth mat just 300 mm
below the ground level.

 We connect all the raisers flats to earthing pads of the equipment by nut bolts and we should paint the bolted connections by
anticorrosive paints. This point of earthing can not be welded to facilitate equipment replacement as when required. The leads
come as riser from the earth mat should be welded with earth grid. The flats above ground should also be welded to the rod
conductors below the ground. We must paint the welded points with red lead and bitumen.

Below earthing of some of the substation equipments are described:

Earthing of Current Transformer

One 50 mm × 10 mm ms flat comes down along the a leg of Current Transformer support structure from metallic base of the CT. This
is connected to the main earthing grid via riser. Diagonally opposite vertical leg members of the structure is connected to the main
earthing grid via another riser. If first riser comes from x conductor of the ground grid then second riser must come from the rod
conductor of y direction.

The CT junction box should also be connected to the main earthing grid from two points by means of 50 mm × 10 mm ms flats.
Earthing of Circuit Breaker
Supporting structure of each pole of a circuit breaker along with the metallic base of the poles are connected to the main earthing grid
via two risers one preferably from x and other from y direction. The structure of the poles are connected together with 50 mm × 8 mm
ms flat. The mechanism box of each pole is also connected to the main earthing grid via 50 mm × 10 mm ms flat.

Earthing of Isolator
The base of each pole of the isolator should be connected together with the help of one 50 mm × 10 mm ms flat. This ms flat will be
connected to the main earthing grid via two risers one preferably from x and other from y direction earth mat conductors. The
mechanism box of the isolator should be connected to the auxiliary earth mat and the auxiliary earth mat then connected to the main
earthing grid to two different points on the main earthing grid.
Earthing of Lightning Arrestors
The base of the lightning arrestors must be connected to the main earthing grid via one riser and structure of the lightning arrestors
must be connected to the main earthing grid via another riser. One extra earthing connection is provided in lightning arrestors which
connects a treated earth pit via surge counter of the arrestors. This earth pit may be with test link.

Earthing of Capacitive Voltage Transformer(CVT)

The base of the CVT or capacitive voltage transformer is connected to the main earthing grid via a riser. The special earthing point on
the base of the CVT is connected to the pipe earth electrode with 50 mm × 8 mm ms flat. The bottom portion of the support structure
is also connected to the main earthing grid via riser. Two opposite earthing points of the CVT junction box should also be connected
to the main earthing grid.

Earthing of Cable Sealing System

The supporting structure of a cable sealing system should be connected to the main earthing grid via two risers. The earthing strip of
size 50 mm × 10 mm ms flat must come down from the top of the supporting structure.

Earthing of Earthing Transformer

The base of the earthing transformer must be connected to the main earthing grid via two risers. The neutral point of the earthing
transformer must be connected to the pipe earth electrode with test link. The neutral to ground connection should go through a neutral
current transformer for earth fault protection purpose.

Transmission tower earthing:

 We should probably earth each tower of an electrical transmission line.

 One should measure footing resistance of each tower. We should take the footing resistance of tower in dry season before
stringing the earth wire.In any circumstances footing resistance of the tower will not be more than 10 ohms.
 We should use either pipe earthing or counterpoise for earthing of the electrical transmission line tower.
 The tower earthing lug should extend beyond the concrete base of the tower leg. We also use lug connector in case of
counterpoise earthing. Logically we should pipe earthing to any of the four legs of a tower but practically we should provide
earthing to that leg which is specifically marked for providing earthing.
Pipe Earthing of Electrical Transmission Tower
 In case of pipe earthing system we use galvanised steel pipe of diameter 25 mm and of length 3 meters. We bury the pipe
vertically in the soil in such a manner that the top of the pipe shall be 1 meter below the ground level.
 Where the tower stands on rock we have to bury the earthing pipe in damp soil available nearer to the tower. Then we
connect the tower leg with the pipe with the help of galvanized steel tape of suitable cross section. In that case we have to
bury the steel tape in a groove cut on the rock and adequately protect the steel tape from damage.
 In case of pipe earthing system we fill surroundings of the pipe with alternating layers of charcoal and salt, which maintain
the surrounding soil of the pipe moist. A details pictorial representation of a pipe earthing is down here below.

Transformer neutral earthing:

 Resistance grounding systems protect power transformers and generators from damaging fault currents.
 Low resistance grounding of the neutral limits the ground fault current to a high level (typically 50 amps or more) in order to
operate protective fault clearing relays and current transformers. These devices are then able to quickly clear the fault, usually
within a few seconds.
 The limited fault current and fast response time also prevent over-heating and mechanical stress on conductors.
 If the system has a neutral which is available, a single phase distribution transformer can be used in conjunction with a
loading resistor to provide high resistance grounding. This is particularly well suited for grounding of generators, in that it
allows the system to operate like an ungrounded system under normal conditions, while still retaining the ability to limit
ground fault current.
 The primary of the transformer is connected from the system neutral to ground. The loading resistor is connected across the
transformer secondary. The resistor is normally sized to allow a primary ground fault current in the range of 2 to 12 amps and
is typically rated for either one minute or continuous duty.
  The transformer should be sized accordingly, with a primary rating equal to the system line to neutral voltage and the
secondary normally rated 240 or 120 volts. When a ground fault occurs downstream of the grounding transformer, ground
fault current flows through the fault and back through ground to the grounding transformer.
 The loading resistor limits the current flow in the secondary winding, which in turn limits the flow of the ground fault current
back into the system through the primary of the grounding transformer.

Sum Up:

Introduction to Earthing:

 In an electrical installation an earthing system or grounding system connects specific parts of that installation with the Earth's
conductive surface for safety and functional purposes.
 The point of reference is the Earth's conductive surface. The choice of earthing system can affect
the safety and electromagnetic compatibility of the installation.
Protective earthing
 An earth ground connection of the exposed conductive parts of electrical equipment helps protect from electric shock by
keeping the exposed conductive surface of connected devices close to earth potential, when a failure of electrical insulation
occurs.
 When a fault occurs, current flows from the power system to earth.
 The current may be high enough to operate the over current protection fuse or circuit breaker, which will then interrupt the
circuit.
 To ensure the voltage on exposed surfaces is not too high, the impedance (resistance) of the connection to earth must be
kept low relative to the normal circuit impedance.
Functional earthing
 A functional earth connection serves a purpose other than electrical safety, and may carry current as part of normal operation.
 For example, in a single-wire earth return power distribution system, the earth forms one conductor of the circuit and carries
all the load current.
Step potential and Touch potential:
When a fault occurs, the fault current flow to the ground due to which the potential gradient near the electrical equipment
developed. This potential gradient may affect a person in two ways, either by step-to-step contact or by touch contact.
Step-Potential – Step potential is the potential difference between the feet of a person standing on the floor of the substation, with 0.5
m spacing between the one step, during the flow of fault current through the ground system.

Touch-Potential – Touch potential is a potential difference between the fingers of a raising hand touching the faulted structure and
the feet of the person standing on substation floor. The person should not get a shock even if the ground structure is carrying fault
current, i.e.; the touch potential should be very small.

The resistance of the human body is highly variable, and the current that may pass through the body depends on the resistance of the
body and the position in which it touches the ground. The resistance of the body is taken as 1000 ohms.
Factors affecting Earth resistance:

Resistance of earth is the resistance between infinite earth and earth electrode. This depends upon mainly three factors
 The resistance of the electrode itself,
 The contact resistance between electrode surface and soil,
 The resistivity of soil between the electrode and infinite earth.
The first two factors can be taken as negligible compared to third factor, i.e. resistivity of soil. This is the reason, we generally
consider resistivity of the soil only, when we deal with resistance of earth.

Methods of Earthing:

There are several methods of earthing like wire or strip earthing, rod earthing, pipe earthing, plate earthing or earthing through water
mains. Most commonly used methods of earthing are pipe earthing and plate earthing. These methods are explained below in details.

Earthing Electrode
In this type of earthing any wire, rod, pipe, plate or a bundle of conductors, inserted in the ground horizontally or vertically. In
distributing systems, the earth electrode may consist of a rod, about 1 meter in length and driven vertically into the ground. In
generating substations, grounding mat is used rather than individual rods.

Pipe Earthing
This is the most common and best system of earthing as compared to other systems suitable for the same earth and moisture
conditions. In this method the galvanized steel and perforated pipe of approved length and diameter in place upright in a permanently
wet soil, as shown below. The size of the pipe depends upon the current to be carried and type of soil.
Normally, the size of the pipe uses for earthing is of diameter 40 mm and 2.5 meters in length for ordinary soil or of greater length in
case of dry and rocky soil. The depth at which the pipe must be buried depends on the moistures of the ground.

The pipe is placed at 3.75 meters. The bottom of the pipe is surrounded by small pieces of coke or charcoal at a distance of about 15
cm. Alternate layers of coke and salt are used to increase the effective area of the earth and to decrease the earth resistance
respectively.

Another pipe of 19 mm diameter and minimum length 1.25 meters is connected at the top of GI pipe through reducing socket.

During summer the moisture in the soil decreases, which causes an increase in earth resistance. So a cement concrete work is done to
keep the water arrangement accessible, and in summer to have an effective earth, 3 or 4 buckets of water are put through the funnel
connected to 19 mm diameter pipe, which is further connected to GI pipe.

The earth wire either GI or a strip of GI wire of sufficient cross section to carry faulty current safely is carried in a GI pipe of diameter
12 mm at a depth of about 60cm from the ground.

Plate Earthing
In Plate Earthing an earthing plate either of copper of dimension 60cm×60cm×3m of galvanized iron of dimensions 60 cm× 60 cm×6
mm is buried into the ground with its face vertical at a depth of not less than 3 meters from ground level.
The earth plate is inserted into auxiliary layers of coke and salt for a minimum thickness of 15 cm. The earth wire (GI or copper wire)
is tightly bolted to an earth plate with the help of nut or bolt. The copper plate and copper wire are usually not employed for grounding
purposes because of their higher cost.

Substation earthing:

The points we must earth in an electrical substation.

 The neutral point of different voltage levels.

 Metallic enclosure of all current carrying equipment.
 Framework of all current carrying equipment.
 All the metallic structure even not associated with current carrying equipment.
Method of Earthing
 All the points to be earthed with earthing grid with corrosion resistance mild still rods must be connected. The connection
rods must be buried minimum 600 mm below the ground level. If these horizontally buried rods cross a cable trench, road,
underground pipework, or rail track the rods should cross the barriers through at least 300 mm below the bottom of the
barriers. Although we use Mild Steel rods for connecting earth grid below the ground level but we normally use mild steel
flats for same above ground level.

 We call the connection between different earthing points and earning grid as riser. We normally use ms flats in portion of the
risers above ground level. The rod portion of the risers below the ground level is identical to the rod conductors use for
creating main earth grid. We should connect all the steel structures with earth grid by at least two risers. In this case one riser
must come from the rod of earthing grid in x direction and other from y direction.

 We also connect the earthing points of all equipment in same fashion. We connect all the isolator mechanism boxes with
individual auxiliary earth mat and each auxiliary earth mat to main earth grid. We place each auxiliary earth mat just 300 mm
below the ground level.

 We connect all the raisers flats to earthing pads of the equipment by nut bolts and we should paint the bolted connections by
anticorrosive paints. This point of earthing can not be welded to facilitate equipment replacement as when required. The leads
come as riser from the earth mat should be welded with earth grid. The flats above ground should also be welded to the rod
conductors below the ground. We must paint the welded points with red lead and bitumen.

Transmission tower earthing:

 We should probably earth each tower of an electrical transmission line.

 One should measure footing resistance of each tower. We should take the footing resistance of tower in dry season before
stringing the earth wire.In any circumstances footing resistance of the tower will not be more than 10 ohms.
 We should use either pipe earthing or counterpoise for earthing of the electrical transmission line tower.
 The tower earthing lug should extend beyond the concrete base of the tower leg. We also use lug connector in case of
counterpoise earthing. Logically we should pipe earthing to any of the four legs of a tower but practically we should provide
earthing to that leg which is specifically marked for providing earthing.

Pipe Earthing of Electrical Transmission Tower

 In case of pipe earthing system we use galvanised steel pipe of diameter 25 mm and of length 3 meters. We bury the pipe
vertically in the soil in such a manner that the top of the pipe shall be 1 meter below the ground level.
 Where the tower stands on rock we have to bury the earthing pipe in damp soil available nearer to the tower. Then we
connect the tower leg with the pipe with the help of galvanized steel tape of suitable cross section. In that case we have to
bury the steel tape in a groove cut on the rock and adequately protect the steel tape from damage.
 In case of pipe earthing system we fill surroundings of the pipe with alternating layers of charcoal and salt, which maintain
the surrounding soil of the pipe moist. A details pictorial representation of a pipe earthing is down here below.
Transformer neutral earthing:
 Resistance grounding systems protect power transformers and generators from damaging fault currents.
 Low resistance grounding of the neutral limits the ground fault current to a high level (typically 50 amps or more) in order to
operate protective fault clearing relays and current transformers. These devices are then able to quickly clear the fault, usually
within a few seconds.
 The limited fault current and fast response time also prevent over-heating and mechanical stress on conductors.
 If the system has a neutral which is available, a single phase distribution transformer can be used in conjunction with a
loading resistor to provide high resistance grounding. This is particularly well suited for grounding of generators, in that it
allows the system to operate like an ungrounded system under normal conditions, while still retaining the ability to limit
ground fault current.
 The primary of the transformer is connected from the system neutral to ground. The loading resistor is connected across the
transformer secondary. The resistor is normally sized to allow a primary ground fault current in the range of 2 to 12 amps and
is typically rated for either one minute or continuous duty.

 The transformer should be sized accordingly, with a primary rating equal to the system line to neutral voltage and the
secondary normally rated 240 or 120 volts. When a ground fault occurs downstream of the grounding transformer, ground
fault current flows through the fault and back through ground to the grounding transformer.
 The loading resistor limits the current flow in the secondary winding, which in turn limits the flow of the ground fault current
back into the system through the primary of the grounding transformer.
Post Test:

1. Write a short note on: Step potential and Touch potential

2. What are the factors affecting earth resistance?

Home Work:

1. What are the factors on which resistivity of soil depends?

2. What do you mean by Transfomer neutral earthing?