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About Electrical Grounding: The Concept of Sphere of Influence When Determining Grounding Electrode Efficiency
About Electrical Grounding: The Concept of Sphere of Influence When Determining Grounding Electrode Efficiency
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About Electrical Grounding
The Concept of Sphere Of Influence When Our engineering
What Is Electrical Grounding
Determining Grounding Electrode Efficiency manager David
Stockin is the
The Concept of Sphere Of author of McGraw
Influence Hills NEC 2014
When determining how efficiently grounding electrodes discharge electrons into the
Grounding and
earth and important concept is the “sphere of influence”. The sphere of influence is
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the volume of soil throughout which the electrical potential rises to more than a
Types of Grounding which fully discusses above
small percentage of the ground potential rise of the ground electrode, when that
Electrodes? grade wiring issues and below
electrode discharges current into the soil. The greater the volume, compared with
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the volume of the electrode, the more efficient the electrode. Long electrodes, such
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as grounding rods, are the most efficient. The surface area of the electrode
Grounding System Design conjunction with Article 250 of
determines the ampacity of the device, but does not affect “the sphere of
the 2011 National Electrical
influence”. The greater the surface area, the greater the contact with the soil and
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the more electrical energy that can be discharged per unit of time.
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Fig 1: SphereofInfluence of an Earth Electrode
Figure 2: The formula for calculating the volume of soil
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A simpler version is used when the above formula is modified by rounding Π (pi)
down to to 3 and cross canceling to get the formula: V=5L3
In this example, a single 10foot driven rod would utilize 5,000 cubic feet of soil,
where as a single 8 foot rod would utilize about half the soil at 2,560 cubic feet.
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