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PIERS Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug.

1215, 2013

1300

Grounding Grid Safety Evaluation under Lightning Current


Farhan Hanaffi1, 2 , Wah Hoon Siew1 , and Igor Timoshkin1
1

University of Strathclyde, UK
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Malaysia

Abstract This paper presents a study about hazards that could occur when lightning currents
flow through a ground-grid. Behaviour of a ground-grid when subjected to power-frequency fault
currents is well studied and probably well understood. However, the behaviour of the groundgrid when subjected to transient currents is less well understood. The objective, therefore, is
to provide better understanding of the behaviour of a ground-grid when excited by transient
voltages and currents. The study is based on the energy transfer to a human body arising from
step voltages on the surface of soil. Four different scenarios are considered to simulate different
coordination of human feet. Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to solve exact Maxwell
equation for modelling the grounding behaviour under lightning current. The grounding system
was modelled in 3D.
1. INTRODUCTION

Grounding systems play an important role in protecting life or facilities from any fault or transients
in a power system. The main purpose of a grounding system is to provide the lowest impedance path
for transient currents especially lightning current of high magnitude and which has high frequency
components. Behaviour of grounding under 50Hz/60Hz application is well understood [1]. However,
under transient lightning currents, the ground reactance and the high frequency components of the
lightning current may increase the value of step and touch voltage of the grounding grid. No
Standards give detailed guidelines to design a grounding grid to consider transient and lightning
current [2]. Therefore it is important to evaluate the safe threshold required under lightning current
flow.
Electrical current flow through a human body is an important element to consider when considering safety of an electrical system. Duration, magnitude, and frequency components of current;
and body weight influence the amount of current that can safely flow through a human body. The
current flow through a human body may cause respiratory problem, ventricular fibrillation, cardiac
fibrillation, muscular contraction and burn [3, 4]. Currently, there is very limited knowledge on
safety limit for impulse current on human body.
In order to simulate and analyse the response of a ground-grid under lightning current, many
researchers have developed their own models. Those models were based on circuit approach [5, 6],
transmission line approach [7, 8] or electromagnetic theory approach [9, 10]. Circuit analysis is
the most simple and easily observable method, but it cannot predict surge propagation delay
On the other hand, the disadvantage of the transmission line method is that it is limited to a
certain frequency thus making it less accurate to evaluate injected current with fast rise-times [11].
The electromagnetic theory approach makes less assumptions by solving Maxwells equations but
requires more computational time for a complex structure.
In this paper, the finite element method (FEM) is proposed to model and analyse the groundgrids behavior under lightning current. FEM was chosen because it is necessary to model in 3D and
to run time-domain simulations. COMSOL Multhiphysics is an application package that is proven
and tested by many researchers and it was also used by the authors. Results of this paper are
compared with previous modeling method for validity. The method is applied to calculate ground
potential rise due to lightning current and to evaluate safety limit on human based on energy flow
through a human body. Four scenarios are considered in this study with different coordination of
step voltages.
2. SAFETY THRESDHOLD

Base on electrocution experiment on animal using power frequency current, Dalziel [12] concluded
that an impulse current with energy of 50 J is a safe limit. Bio-electromagnetic groups suggest that
the absorbtion of 10 to 50 joules by a human body is the range of values that can cause ventricular
fibrillation [13]. Energy that flows through a body is calculated using Equation (1) with an assumed

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug. 12-15, 2013 1301

voltage applied directly from foot to foot with no other insulation.


n
1 X
[V n (t)]2 t
Energy(J) =
Rb

(1)

where Rb is body resistance which is assumed to be 1000 , n is the total number of voltage
transients, Vn is voltage between the two feet and t is sample period.
3. FINITE ELEMENT METHOD (FEM) MODELING

The Finite Element Method (FEM) solves differential or integral equations by discretising the
volume-space (usually with triangular vertices) and applying the governing equations to the surfaces
defined by these points before solving the resultant matrices. The analysis using FEM generally
involves four steps:
i. Discretization of the geometry to sub-region or element (meshing) typically triangular or
tetrahedron.
ii. Attainment of the field equation as Governing equation in surface of element.
iii. Assembly of all the elements in the solution region by matrices.
iv. Solve the matrices obtained.
Nekhoul et al. [14] divides the grounding system into three domains, namely low conducting medium
(soil), conducting media (conductors) and non-conducting media. Each domain is formulated using the magnetic vector potential (A) and scalar potential (V ). M. Trlep et al. [15] solves Poisson
equation by applying Galerkins formulation of FEM and models the grounding conductors in 1D
coupled with 3D soil model to improve simulation time. Q. Lei [16] uses the complex conductivity ( + j) to consider frequency effect on ground-grid modelling. All previous FEM solutions
assumed quasi static conditions in their simulations. As reported in [17, 18] the quasi static assumption resulted in the under-estimation of the step voltageat high frequency. Therefore, in the
attempt to overcome this limitation, the wave Equation (2) is used as the governing equation to
solve Maxwells equations in this paper.

A
1
r ( A) + 0
+ 0
0 r
=0
(2)
t
t
t
4. VALIDATION OF MODEL

Single horizontal grounding conductor and 10 m 10 m grounding grid are simulated to verify the
numerical modelling used in this research. Single horizontal grounding with the radius of the copper
conductor at 7.5 mm and the length at 20 m is used in this model. The conductor is buried 0.5 m in
the soil with permittivity r = 50 and soil resistivity = 100 m. Illustration of the configuration
is shown in Figure 1.
Air
Grounding

0.5m

Figure 1: Illustration of horizontal grounding system.

Two different current impulses are injected into the conductor with 10 KA 1/5 s as fast rise
impulse and 100 KA 10/100 s as slow rise impulse. As shown in Figures 2 and 3 the results are
comparable with published results in [8, 10].
Another simulation was done with 10 m10 m grounding grid with radius of conductor at 7 mm,
the grid is buried 0.5 m in the soil with permittivity r = 9 and soil resistivity = 1000 m. In this
simulation, an impulse current with waveshape 0.36/26.8 s was injected through a corner of the
grid. All these parameters are identical to those in [8, 10], to allow comparisons. Figure 4 shows the
transient voltage at the injected point. The result shows the injected voltage value is comparable
with results from other simulations that use Method of Moment ( MOM) and Transmission line
method (TLM) [8, 9].

PIERS Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug. 1215, 2013

1302

Figure 2: Transient voltage at injected point of


1/5 s impulse current.

Figure 3: Transient voltage at injected point of


10/100 s impulse current

Figure 4: Transient voltage at injected point.


5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In order to evaluate the safety level of grounding grid under lightning current, four different scenarios
A, B, C and D are considered in this study as shown in Figure 5. Every scenario presents the step
voltage as the voltage between two points that are 1 m apart.
These studies considered 200 KA 1.2/50 s as the lightning current injected at the corner of the
gid. Soil resistivity was 1000 m, r = 9 and r = 1. The grid consisted of 5 m5 m4 of 50 mm2
coper conductors and buried 0.5 m below the soil. Step voltages were computed at the surface of
the soil.
Step voltages for every scenario are presented in Figure 6. It shows the step voltage have
different maximum value depending on the coordination of a humans feet. The scenarios for foot
coordination that is parallel with the grounding conductor give lower step voltages. The step
voltages are in general agreement with values published in [19].

Figure 5: Grounding system considered in the simulation.

Figure 6: Step voltage for different case.

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug. 12-15, 2013 1303

In order to evaluate the safety or otherwise of these voltages, the energy of these step voltage
were calculated. Equation (1) was used with an assumed body resistance of 1000 . Table 1 shows
the energy that would flow through a human body for different scenarios and without scaling down
the magnitude of the step voltage, which was obtained using a current of 200 kA peak. Based on the
safety threshold, the entire scenario A is not safe because it exceeded 50 J as proposed by Dalziel.
The results presented are preliminary results and further investigations are needed to improve the
accuracy of the model in order to evaluate step voltages.
Table 1: Energy for different location of step voltage.
Scenario
A
B
C
D

Energy (kJ)
135.33
2.903
2.835
6.5923

6. CONCLUSION

This paper presented the simulation results based on the solution of Maxwells equations using the
Finite Element Method. Validation of the method showed good agreement with published results.
There is very limited study on safety threshold for human on impulse current. This preliminary
study analysed four scenarios to simulate different coordinations between two feet. Simulation
results show the feet coordination during a lightning discharge to ground can be a safety risk to
human.
These preliminary results would be checked with experimental-model results and future study
will consider the influence of soil properties and lightning parameters.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors gratefully acknowledge Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia and Universiti Teknikal
Malaysia Melaka for the postgraduate scholarship awarded during the development of this research.
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PIERS Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug. 1215, 2013

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