1954
4, OCTOBER 2008
Improved Methodology for High-Frequency
Low-Current Measurement of Grounding
Rod Impedance
Pedro Llovera, Juan Antonio LLiso, Vicente Fuster, and Alfredo Quijano
Abstract—The high-frequency behavior of grounding rods is a
major concern in several applications where high-frequency cur-
rents are involved, such as lightning currents or transient phe-
nomena. Some measuring systems of high-frequency impedance
of grounding rods are now available. However, the widely used
method is the fall of potential using a three-rod method configu-
ration such as in low-frequency measurements. A special spher-
ical real-scale setup presented in this paper shows the influence of
the ground current distribution on the impedance measurement.
This effect is not relevant for the usual low-frequency measure-
ments. Thus, careful attention should be paid to current distribu-
tion before concluding on the behavior (capacitive, inductive) of a
grounding system.
Index Terms—Earth resistance tester, grounding electrodes,
grounding impedance, high-frequency measurement, lightning
protection.
I. INTRODUCTION
N power systems, measurements of grounding impedance
I are usually performed at low frequencies. Under such
conditions, grounding impedance is represented by a single
resistor [1], [2]. However, during transient response, such as
a lightning stroke or other fast transient phenomena, high-fre-
quency currents flowing through ground can induce dangerous
overvoltages [3], [4] greater than expected from a purely
resistive grounding. In order to assess the high-frequency
behavior measurements performed on lightning protection
systems or power systems, grounding should provide the value
of grounding impedance as a function of frequency instead of
grounding resistance. In the particular case of a lightning stroke,
although the high-frequency current represents only a part of
the dissipated energy, its effects can be strong enough to cause
severe damage to installations or the human body, especially if
grounding impedance is inductive. It should be also important
to consider high-current-related effects due to the soil ioniza-
tion during a lightning event. However, in onsite measurements,
it is not possible to perform high-current measurements due
to safety rules. Nonlinear aspects, such as current-dependent
resistance due to soil ionization during high current conduction
[5]–[7] or field-dependent resistance, will not be considered
in this work since they are believed to produce an impedance
Manuscript received February 6, 2007; revised August 30, 2007. Current ver-
sion published September 24, 2008. Paper no. TPWRD-00069-2007.
The authors are with the Institute of Electric Technology, Parque Tecnológico,
Paterna 46980, Spain (e-mail: pedro.llovera@ite.es; jantonio.lliso@ite.es; vi-
cente.fuster@ite.es; alfredo.quijano@ite.es).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2008.923812
0885-8977/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 23, NO.
Fig. 1. Impedance model of a grounding rod.
reduction effect (thus increasing the efficiency of grounding),
at least during the first lightning stroke.
In the field of high-frequency measurements of grounding
systems, several efforts have been made to measure the be-
havior of grounding systems [8]–[12] or soil [13]. Very often,
usual low-frequency measurement techniques are applied to
grounding impedance measurements using a high-frequency
function generator. In some cases, the inductance of the connec-
tion cables is mathematically eliminated in the measurement.
However, these measurements should be carefully performed
since there are important differences compared to low-fre-
quency measurements. It is possible to obtain very different
results depending on the applied method. A common result is
to show the inductive behavior of the grounding rods, but there
is some experimental evidence of rather a capacitive response,
especially in highly resistive grounds, as shown in triggered
lightning experiments [14].
Measurements in the laboratory and in a real-scale system
have been performed to show how the capacitive component
is dominant in the high-frequency range for resistive soil and
how inappropriate measuring systems can completely shadow
it. That can be especially shown using an experimental setup
aimed to obtain a radial distribution of currents on the ground.
II. HIGH-FREQUENCY MODELS OF GROUNDING RODS
Grounding models of vertical rods can be roughly classified
into impedance models, propagation models (distributed param-
eters), or electromagnetic models [15]–[19].
The simplest model is represented by an impedance com-
posed of a single resistor, an inductance, and a capacitor (Fig. 1).
In the expressions giving the values of each element, rod geom-
etry is the main factor and soil characteristics are considered in
the resistance and capacity. Magnetic permeability is implicit in
the expression since, in most of the cases, it is the same as air.
Rod material, while conductive, has no influence.
LLOVERA et al.: IMPROVED METHODOLOGY FOR MEASUREMENT OF GROUNDING ROD IMPEDANCE
Fig. 2. Impedance modulus and phase of an RC equivalent circuit.
General expressions for the elements of the model are
(1)
(2)
(3)
where is the soil resistivity , is the rod length (in me-
ters), is the rod diameter (in meters), and is the soil dielectric
relative permittivity (vacuum permittivity is already consid-
ered in the expression).
High-frequency dependence of grounding resistivity or per-
mittivity is not considered unless a different model is used for
each harmonic component of the current. In [10], some mea-
surements on the frequency dependence of soil resistivity and
permittivity have been performed showing an increase of the
capacitive and resistive component.
The corresponding impedance diagram for an impedance
model is represented in Fig. 2, considering usual values such as
m, 20 mm, 1 m, 20 which give the
following parameters , H, 0.21 nF. For
low frequencies, the impedance is purely resistive, then the ca-
pacitive component induces a decrease of impedance modulus
and, finally for higher frequencies, the inductance component is
dominant. If the capacitive component is increased, the capac-
itive decrease is shifted toward lower frequencies. If only the
resistive component is increased, the low-frequency impedance
is changed but high-frequency behavior remains the same.
Two other mathematical models can be used to represent a
vertical grounding rod: a distributed parameter model where the
grounding rod is considered a lossy transmission line [13]–[16]
or electromagnetic models [19]. Both models increase the
1955
Fig. 3. Parallel plane electrodes measurement.
complexity of calculations and very often require computer
simulations.
Nevertheless, an accurate measurement and analysis of
grounding impedance should be based in an appropriate model.
When measuring a grounding impedance of a vertical rod up to
1 MHz, the simplest model to analyze results is an impedance.
The measurement circuit is still small enough (10–20 m) to
represent it by an electric circuit composed of resistances,
inductances, and capacitors. Frequency-dependent soil param-
eters may also be introduced.
III. LABORATORY MEASUREMENTS
A. Plane Electrode Configuration
The first and simplest measurement was performed on a par-
allel plane electrode system with a guard ring (see Fig. 3). The
guarded electrode diameter was 1 cm and the distance between
electrodes was 2 mm (the distance between guard electrode and
guarded electrode was 0.5 mm). The analyzed medium is dis-
tilled water whose conductivity is controlled by adding ions
from salt.
Measurements (Fig. 4) show an impedance diagram charac-
teristic of an LRC circuit mode, such as Fig. 2. In the phase
diagram, it can be shown that the capacitive component is more
important for highly resistive water, though the impedance dia-
gram is never completely capacitive for high frequencies, prob-
ably due to the inductive component of measurement cables.
The phase angle is even inductive for more conductive media.
In this case, the modulus diagram is, to some extent, different
from an LRC model (Fig. 5). The low-frequency impedance de-
creases monotonically, probably due to ionic conduction until an
inductive behavior leads to a high-frequency impedance mod-
ulus increase.
B. Spherical Electrode Setup
A second experimental setup was built in order to take into
account the spherical current distribution. The grounding elec-
trode was a hemispherical 30-cm diameter grid and the active
electrode was a 6-cm diameter sphere connected to a high-fre-
quency generator (Fig. 6). The resistive medium was controlled
conductivity distilled water.
Impedance diagrams (Fig. 7) showed LRC behaviors. It is
noticeable that the increase in conductivity did not change the
capacitive component in agreement with Fig. 2 for theoretical
LRC circuits. Parameters fitting from measurements showed a
1956
Fig. 4. Impedance measurements in frequency domain for different resistivities
of water.
Fig. 5. Enlargement of Fig. 4, impedance modulus measurements in the fre-
quency domain.
Fig. 6. Experimental setup for small-scale spherical measurements of the
grounding impedance.
good agreement deriving from the low frequency value and
from the high-frequency values (Table I).
These basic results indicate that capacitive behavior should
be found for grounding rods on resistive soils when measuring
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 23, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2008
Fig. 7. Impedance measurements results for the spherical electrode
arrangement.
TABLE I
RC VALUES CALCULATIONS FROM MEASUREMENTS
with appropriate systems. The real-scale measurements proce-
dure was aimed to correctly measure the capacitive component
of the grounding impedance.
IV. MEASUREMENTS ON REAL-SCALE ELECTRODE SYSTEM
A. Radial Conductor Distribution
According to previous results, a second setup to investigate
the high-frequency impedance of a grounding rod was tested.
The studied grounding rod was 1 m long and 1.5 cm in diameter
copper rod. 7 auxiliary grounding rods 2 m long and 1.5 cm in
diameter were connected in a circular distribution with 10 m
radius around the studied rod (Fig. 8). The circular distributed
rods were connected with a 16 mm section cable in order to
reduce their grounding impedance and create an equipotential
surface.
The low-frequency resistance of the central rod was 140
and the low-frequency resistance of the whole set of circular
distributed and interconnected electrodes was 5.3 when mea-
sured with a commercial telurometer (values of low-frequency
resistance of auxiliary rods ranged between 15 and 42 ).
Both values exhibit some variations according to the weather
but the studied rod resistance was always one order of magni-
tude greater than the circular distributed electrodes. Soil resis-
LLOVERA et al.: IMPROVED METHODOLOGY FOR MEASUREMENT OF GROUNDING ROD IMPEDANCE
Fig. 8. Grounding rod distribution for high-frequency measurements. The
high-frequency impedance is measured for a central rod (gray color) whereas
rods from 1 to 7 are auxiliary rods for measurement with radial current
distribution. The connection between auxiliary rods and the central rod is made
using a common point close to the central rod.
Fig. 9. Electrical connections for high-frequency measurements.
tivity was around 150 and fairly homogeneous although
there was not any information about the nature of deeper layers.
A high-frequency generator provided the voltage signal to
the circuit and was connected to the grounding system as dis-
played in Fig. 9. The maximum voltage is 10 V and the max-
imum current is 100 mA. A 100-Ms/s oscilloscope was used to
measure the voltage across the shunt resistance and the output
from the function generator. The whole setup was powered by
a battery and inverter in order to avoid a capacitive coupling to
the power grid grounding system. The measurement circuit al-
lowed measuring the central rod impedance and the distributed
rods impedance in series. It is not possible to separate the cen-
tral and distributed rods’ contributions to impedance. This pro-
cedure was preferred to the three-electrode method because of
its simplicity. The error of considering both impedances in se-
ries was thus assumed.
Specially developed software provided the impedance mod-
ulus and phase with good precision. The modulus measurement
was compared to low-frequency measurements with commer-
cial low-frequency telurometers. A accuracy in phase was
also determined.
B. Effect of Radial Distribution of Current
The effect of adding rods to the circular distribution was first
studied, starting with a single rod and finishing with the whole
seven rods set. That can be seen in Fig. 10.
1957
Fig. 10. Effect of the auxiliary rod number on the impedance modulus.
These measurements showed the importance of current distri-
bution. There were two cooperative effects appearing by adding
additional rods as follows.
• The inductance of the connection cables was clearly
reduced.
• The capacity between the central rod and the additional
rods apparently increased.
Furthermore, the low-frequency resistance was also dimin-
ished by adding rods because the measurement gives the series
impedance of the central rod and the distributed rods (which
are all in parallel). But low frequency curves remain parallel
even if their value at 100 Hz is different. It was then concluded
that there is no effect of the current distribution in ground on
the low-frequency value. This is why a two-rod measurement
is accurate enough for a low-frequency grounding resistance
measurement.
Fig. 10 also shows that the apparently inductive behavior of
the grounding rod when tested in a two-rod circuit (see the upper
curve of Fig. 10) is, in fact, due to the measuring system and
not the actual rod. In these curves, it can also be seen that the
increasing of the impedance modulus is a consequence of a par-
allel resonance of the measuring circuit. Higher frequencies (not
represented in this figure) indicate that the curve should become
again capacitive after resonance. Anyways, these much higher
frequencies should not correspond to the most important part of
the lightning energy or usual high-frequency transients in power
lines. Those frequencies are also the limit for the dimensions of
the measuring system.
The inductive contribution can be reduced by adding more
connections in parallel. The impedance increase on the high-
frequency range of the grounding rod is not a property of the
rod but depends on the measuring system. The generally ex-
pected increase in impedance when increasing the frequency
turns into a decrease of impedance for the whole range of ap-
plied frequencies.
C. Low Inductance Conductors
After analyzing previous results, new low inductance conduc-
tors were tested for high-frequency measurements. Instead of
cable connections, wide isolated aluminium bands were used
to connect the high-frequency generator to grounding rods in
1958 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 23, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2008

Fig. 12. Impedance diagram obtained with circular seven grounding rods elec-
Fig. 11. Impedance and phase measurements of various connections systems trode and aluminum noninductive bands.
used to reduce the inductive contribution of the measurement circuit.

order to reduce their self inductance. They were tested on a

two-rod measurement setup (that is, a conventional measure-
ment). Fig. 11 shows how an isolated cable (16 mm in section)
introduces the biggest inductive component when compared to
a conductive isolated plate (30 mm 2 mm) and to a wide iso-
lated aluminium band (60 mm 0.1 mm approximately).
When using the seven grounding rod electrodes and the low
inductance conductors for measuring grounding impedance, the
inductance was completely reduced, showing a continuous de-
crease in impedance up to some megahertz (Fig. 12). The phase
diagram showed that the inductive component was only detected
for frequencies higher than usual transient currents components Fig. 13. Example of a two-rod grounding system.
(more than 1 MHz). The modulus diagram exhibits a nearly
complete compensation of capacitive and inductive components
for frequencies higher than 2 MHz. rod (low-frequency resistance was 140 for the central rod
With this method, the reduction of inductive component due and 30 for rod 7). But high frequency behavior, due to the
to connection cables is not made by mathematical operations but induction of connecting cable, tends to be the same as the
directly performed through the measurement system. principal grounding rod without additional rods. That does not
mean pure inductive behavior since the single-rod grounding
D. Practical Case: Two-Rod Grounding System system is mostly capacitive. What is shown is that the parallel
When grounding resistance is too high, it is very common to connection between rods is equivalent to an open circuit in the
add additional grounding rods to reduce low-frequency resis- high-frequency range.
tance down to values recommended by standards. From a theo-
retical point of view, both grounding rods should be independent V. TIME-DOMAIN GROUNDING ROD BEHAVIOR
though very often, due to practical reasons, it is not possible to It is possible to obtain the time-domain response from the
separate them enough. The experimental setup was used to test frequency analysis by Fourier analysis.
the high-frequency behavior of two connected grounding rods The steps to obtain the time-domain response are:
10 m away as shown in Fig. 13. Step 1) calculating Fourier coefficients of the lightning cur-
Results are shown in Fig. 14. It is very apparent that rent;
impedance is clearly reduced in the low-frequency range since Step 2) make the convolution in the Fourier domain of light-
the low-frequency resistance of rod 7 is smaller than the central ning current and grounding impedance;
LLOVERA et al.: IMPROVED METHODOLOGY FOR MEASUREMENT OF GROUNDING ROD IMPEDANCE 1959

measuring circuit by means of a radial distribution of grounding

rods and noninductive aluminium band connections.
Results showed how the measuring circuit changes results
leading to inductive behavior which is not intrinsic to the
grounding rod. A physical reduction of the measuring circuit
inductance was preferred rather than mathematical artificial
elimination of the inductive component. This problem was not
found for low-frequency measurements where a simple two-rod
measurement is accurate enough.
For grounding rods on resistive soils, it has been shown that
capacitive behavior is dominant in the high-frequency range.
It also has been shown that extensive grounding systems are
not high frequency efficient although they provide a clear
low-frequency impedance reduction. A new methodology of
high-frequency grounding impedance measurements can be
proposed on the basis of the current distribution in ground. A
distribution of auxiliary rods around the grounding system,
when achievable, can provide more realistic results for high-fre-
quency measurements.
The mathematical calculations through Fourier transform
were able to show sensible differences in overvoltages when
considering a two-rod measuring system or a multiple-rod
measuring system in the high-frequency range.
Fig. 14. Impedance diagram for single- and two-rod grounding systems.
REFERENCES
[1] V. Amoruso, M. Savino, and M. S. Labini, “Analysis of large grounding
systems for earth resistance measurements in two layer soils,” Proc.
Inst. Elect. Eng., Gen., Transm. Distrib., vol. 136, no. 3, pp. 182–194,
1989.
[2] C. G. Wang, T. Takasima, T. Sakuta, and Y. Tsubota, “Grounding resis-
tance measurement using fall-of-potential method with potential probe
located in opposite direction to the current probe,” IEEE Trans. Power
Del., vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 1128–1135, Oct. 1998.
[3] E. M. Bazelyan and Y. P. Raizer, Lightning Physics and Lightning Pro-
tection. London, U.K.: Inst. Phys., 2000.
[4] A. Geri, “Behaviour of grounding systems excited by high impulse cur-
rents: the model and its validation,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 14,
no. 3, pp. 1008–1017, Jul. 1999C. A. Nucci and F. Rachidi, “Lightning
induced overvoltages,” presented at the IEEE Transm. Distrib. Conf.,
Fig. 15. Theoretical step current and grounding electrode voltage. 1999.
[5] A. M. Mousa, “The soil ionization gradient associated with discharge
of high currents into concentrated electrodes,” IEEE Trans. Power Del.,
Step 3) obtain the time response by the inverse Fourier vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 1669–1677, Jul. 1994.
[6] S. Visacro, “A didactical approach of grounding behaviour of lightning
Transform. currents,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Lightning Protection, 2004, pp. 508–513.
An example of the importance of errors in impedance deter- [7] B. Nekhoul, P. Labie, F. X. Zgainski, G. Meunier, F. Morillon, and S.
mination was made using Figs. 11 and 12 curves. A fast step Bourg, “Calculating the impedance of grounding system,” IEEE Trans.
Magn., vol. 32, no. 3, pt. 1, pp. 1509–1512, May 1996.
current waveform as shown in Fig. 15 was injected in the mathe-
[8] C. Mazzetti and G. M. Veca, “Impulse behaviour of ground electrodes,”
matical model when considering the impedance of Fig. 12 (non- IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. PAS-102, no. 9, pp. 3148–3156,
inductive highly capacitive circular distributed rods connection) Sep. 1983.
and the highest curve of Fig. 11 (measurement setup based on [9] M. I. Jambak and H. Ahmad, “Measurements of grounding system re-
sistance based on ground high frequency behaviour for different type
only a two-rod connection). Both impedances were normalized of soil,” in Proc. IEEE Region 10 Conf. Convergent Technologies For
by the low-frequency value before calculating the response. The The Asia-Pacific TENCON, 2000, vol. 3, pp. 207–211.
time response shows the overvoltage due to the inductive com- [10] A. Rousseau and P. Gruet, “Practical high frequency measurement of
ponent of the impedance of Fig. 11. Calculations were made in a lightning earthing system,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Lightning Protection
Conf , 2004, pp. 526–530.
the frequency domain by using the fast Fourier transform (FFT). [11] J. Ma, F. P. Dawalibi, and W. Ruan, “Ground impedance measurements
The time-domain response was obtained by the inverse FFT. and interpretation in various soil structures,” in Proc. IEEE Power Eng.
Soc. Winter Meeting, 2000, vol. 3, pp. 2029–2034.
[12] I. F. Gonos, “Experimental study of transient behaviour of grounding
VI. CONCLUSION grids using scale models,” Meas. Sci. Technol., vol. 17, pp. 2022–2026,
2006.
Laboratory measurements showed clear RC behavior of re-
[13] B. Gertrudes, M. C. Tavares, J. P. Filho, and C. Portela, “Modelling
sistive media. That was also found on real-scale measurements of soil electromagnetic behaviour in frequency domain,” in Proc. Int.
when using an experimental setup, reducing inductance of the Conf. Lightning Protection Conf., 2004, pp. 566–571.
1960
[14] V. A. Rakov, M. A. Uman, M. I. Fernandez, C. T. Mata, K. J. Rambo,
M. V. Stapleton, and R. R. Sutil, “Direct lightning strikes to the light-
ning protective system of a residential building: triggered-lightning ex-
periments,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 575–586, Apr.
2002.
[15] L. Grcev and M. Popov, “On high-frequency circuit equivalents of a
vertical ground rod,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 20, no. 2, pt. 2, pp.
1598–1603, Apr. 2005.
[16] G. S. Ferreira, J. L. Silveira, and A. Raizer, “TLM (Transmission line
modelling method) applied to grounding system,” in Proc. IEEE Int.
Symp. Electromagnetic Compatibility, 2001, vol. 2, pp. 1123–1126.
[17] S. Bourg, B. Sacepe, and T. Debu, “Deep earth electrodes in highly re-
sistive ground: Frequency behaviour,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Elec-
tromagnetic Compatibility, 1995, pp. 584–589.
[18] Y. Liu and R. Thottappillil, “An improved transmission-line model of
grounding system,” IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat., vol. 43, no. 3,
pp. 348–355, Aug. 2001.
[19] L. Grecv and F. Dawalibi, “An electromagnetic model for transient
in grounding systems,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 5, no. 4, pp.
1773–1781, Oct. 1990.
Pedro Llovera was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1973.
He received the electrical engineer degree from
Valencia Polytechnic University, Valencia, in 1998
and the Ph.D. degree from Paris-XI University, Paris,
France, and Valencia Polytechnic University.
As part of his Ph.D. degree, he was a Doc-
toral Student with Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité,
Supélec, France. In 2002, he joined the Institute of
Electric Technology, Paterna, Spain, as a Permanent
Researcher. Currently, he is a Ph.D. teacher with Va-
lencia Polytechnic University. His research activity
is mainly focused on high voltage, insulating materials, electric discharges, and
electrostatics. He is working actively in lightning protection research.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 23, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2008
Juan Antonio LLiso was born in Valencia, Spain, in
1975. He received the physics degree from Valencia
University, Valencia, in 2001, where is currently pur-
suing the Ph.D. degree.
In 2003, he received a research grant in the field
of lightning physics studies at the Institute of Elec-
tric Technology, Spain. He currently forms part of the
Materials and Electrical Discharges Department and
his fundamental research is based on lightning pro-
tection systems.
Vicente Fuster was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1965.
He received the Engineer and Ph.D. degrees in quality
supply from Valencian Polytehcnic University, Va-
lencia, Spain, in 1991 and 1996, respectively.
He is a Permanent Researcher and Teacher of
the Valencian Polytehcnic University where he has
participated as the main researcher on many applied
projects with industry, mainly on electromagnetic
compatibility, electric measurements, electromag-
netic modelling, insulators aging, high currents, and
high voltage. Currently, he is the Technical Director
of the Institute of Electric Technology, Paterna, Spain, and is conducting
research on electromagnetic compatibility and electric energy quality supply.
Alfredo Quijano was born in Valencia, Spain,
in 1960. He received the electrical engineer and
Ph.D. degrees from Valencia Polytechnic University,
Valencia, Spain, in 1986 and 1992, respectively.
Currently, he is a Permanent Staff Teacher and Re-
searcher in the Electrical Engineering Department at
Valencia Polytechnic University. He is also the Head
of the Institute of Electric Technology. His current
research activity is focused on applied research for
the Electrical Technology and Energy area, including
renewable energies, high voltage, new materials and
applications, and research results transferred to companies.