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Optimization Of Earthing System in Industrial Plant

Conference Paper · September 2015

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 OPTIMIZATION OF EARTHING SYSTEM IN INDUSTRIAL PLANT
1
SUSHMA PATTED, 2SANGAMESH GOUDAPPANAVAR
1
M. tech student, IEEE member, 2Associate Professor, IEEE member,
PG-Power and energy system, Department of Electrical and Electronics Basaveshwara Engineering College
(Autonomous) Bagalkot, India
E-mail: 1sushmapatted042@gmail.com, 2sangmesh024@gmail.com

Abstract - As technology is growing rapidly, grounding or earthing has become an essential part of everyday
electricity and one cannot think any electrical installation without proper earthing system but still common
tendency is that, it is so simple driven a rod down the earth or install a earth electrode or plate and connect body
of the equipment or neutral of the transformer or generator & forget it., Several people lose their lives every year
due to this simple belief and face frequently accidents in work area. Electricity has given lot of benefit to society
but proper and safer earthing remained as a deadly element. Hence earthing system in the Indian distribution
sector is defective which is replaced by earthing mat in industries and substations. Accidents can be avoided up
to some extent if design engineer adopt different techniques for safe design there are number of methods
available but final aim is high degree of perfection with optimize design. Designing a proper earthing system
distributed station of industry is quite complicated. Many parameters affect its design. In order for a earthing
design to be safe, it needs to provide a way to carry the electric currents into the ground under both normal and
faulted conditions. Also, it must provide assurance that a person in the vicinity would not be endangered. A
large number of precious lives could be saved in India if we adopt an earthing system that is testable, observable
and controllable. In this project, in 220 KV receiving station of, 33KV/11KV side earthing portion of
substation design will be explored. In order to properly plan and design the earthing, calculations of the
following will be done: maximum fault current, ground resistance, grid current, safe touch and step voltages,
ground potential rise, as well as expected touch and step voltage levels. The calculations are analysed with
MATLAB programming.

Keywords - Designing Earth Mat, Safety, Step Voltage, Touch Voltage.

I. INTRODUCTION  Natural Cause.

Over the years, humans have made some truly
remarkable discoveries, one of which has been the
importance of grounding electrical systems.
Electricity has provided countless benefits to people,
but its network still remains one of the most deadly
elements in human society, and unless there is an
appropriate grounding provided to the
electrical systems, there is a rather large risk to
human lives. In the era of automation and machine
dependence that we are in today “GROUNDING or
EARTHING” assumes special signifince in terms of
human and equipment safety in industries.
Electrical accidents are frequently reported in various
substations and industries in our Nation. And the
reason behind the accidents can be summarized as:
 Leakage of current through deterioted
service lines.
 Breaking of conductors or earth wires.
 Leakage of current through poles.
 Not obeys of safety rules and safety tools
and Equipments.
 Improper method of construction and bad
workmanship.
 Overconfidence of the staff. Lack of
supervision during work done by
 Unqualified labour.
To overcome from such accidents, design engineer
adopt different safety precaution and latest techniques
for safer design, maintenance, testing and
measurements.
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Improper grounding system of industrial plant is
leading to unsafe for human and equipment. Hence
optimization of grounding system in the industrial
plant can be achieved by designing proper earth mat
system of substation i.e. 33/11 KV substation of
plant, In order to design proper earthing system, it
needs to provide
a. Low impedance path for electric current
both under normal and faulted condition.
b. To provide safer limits for voltage gradients.
Step and touch voltages.
III. MOST AFFECTED PARAMETERS FOR
DESIGN OF EARTHING SYSTEM ARE
a. Magnitude and duration of fault current.
b. Soil and surface resistivity at the industrial
plant site (soil structure and soil Model)
c. Property and cross-section of material used
for earth mat conductor.(Conductor size)

Proceedings of IRF International Conference, 26th September 2015, Mumbai, India, ISBN: 978-93-85832-04-8
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 Optimization Of Earthing System In Industrial Plant

d. Earthing mat geometry (Area covered by Steps for grounding design calculation:
Earth mat). The design process of a substation grounding system
e. Permissible touch and step potentials. requires many steps. The following steps are for the
design of the ground grid:
IV. OBJECTIVES
Step 1: The property map and general location plan of
1. To provide safety or protection to the substation should provide good estimates of the
grounding facility to human and equipments area to be grounded. A soil resistivity test will
from danger of electric shock during fault or determine the soil resistivity profile and the soil
normal condition. model needed.
2. To provide safer design for earthing (mat)
system in industrial plant, the permissible Step 2: The conductor size is determined. The fault
touch and step voltages of plant grid should current 3I0 should be the maximum expected future
be greater than actual step and touch fault current that will be conducted by any conductor
voltages. in the grounding system, and the time, tc, should
3. To get the plant ground resistance substation reflect the maximum possible clearing time
less than 5Ω for achieving safer earthing (including backup).
design. Which will lead to optimize design
of earthing system. Step 3: The tolerable touch and step voltages are [to
be] determined. The choice of time, ts, is based on the
judgment of the design engineer.
V. EARTHING MAT DESIGN
METHADOLOGY Step 4: The preliminary design should include a
conductor loop surrounding the entire grounded area,
plus adequate cross conductors to provide convenient
access for equipment grounds, etc. The initial
estimates of conductor spacing and ground rod
locations should be based on the current, IG, and the
area being grounded.

Step 5: Estimates of the preliminary resistance of the

grounding system in uniform soil can be determined.
For the final design, more accurate estimates of the
resistance may be desired. Computer analysis based
on modeling the components of the grounding system
in detail can compute the resistance with a high
degree of accuracy, assuming the soil model is
chosen correctly.

Step 6: The current, IG, is determined. To prevent

overdesign of the grounding system, only that portion
of the total fault current, 3I0, that flows through the
grid to remote earth should be used in designing the
grid. The current, IG, should, however, reflect the
worst fault type and location, the decrement factor,
and any future system expansion.

Step 7: If the GPR of the preliminary design is below

the tolerable touch voltage, no further analysis is
necessary. Only additional conductor required to
provide access to equipment grounds is necessary.

Step 8: The calculation of the mesh and step voltages

for the grid as designed can be done by the
approximate analysis techniques for uniform soil, or
by the more accurate computer analysis techniques.

Step 9: If the computed mesh voltage is below the

tolerable touch voltage, the design may be complete
(see Step 10). If the computed mesh voltage is greater
Fig.1:Design procedure block diagram

Proceedings of IRF International Conference, 26th September 2015, Mumbai, India, ISBN: 978-93-85832-04-8
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 Optimization Of Earthing System In Industrial Plant

than the tolerable touch voltage, the preliminary

design should be revised (see Step 11).

Step 10: If both the computed touch and step voltages

are below the tolerable voltages, the design needs
only the
refinements required to provide access to equipment
grounds. If not, the preliminary design must be
revised (see
Step 11).

Step 11: If either the step or touch tolerable limits are

exceeded, revision of the grid design is required.
These revisions may include smaller conductor
spacing, additional ground rods, etc

Step 12: After satisfying the step and touch voltage

requirements, additional grid and ground rods may be
required. The additional grid conductors may be
required if the grid design does not include
conductors near equipment to be grounded.
Additional ground rods may be required at the base of
surge arresters, transformer neutrals, etc. The final
design should also be reviewed to eliminate hazards
due to transferred potential and hazards associated
Fig.2:earthing mat design without rods
with special areas of concern. The block diagram in
Fig.1 illustrates the procedure to design the ground - Crushed Rock Resistivity (Wet) in ohm meters
grid. Earth Mat is preferable to substations because of Cs - Surface Layer De-rating Factor OR Reduction
space saving on the ground level due to substantial Factor
reduction of earth pits which leads to ease of
coordination. Earth Mat minimizes the danger of high Grid resistance for Initial design :
step or touch voltages in critical operating areas or
places that are frequently used by people.. Hence
conventional pipe and plate earth pits are replced by
earth mat .
Maximum grid current IG and GPR(Ground
33KV/11KV SUBSTATION OF PLANT Potential Rise):
EARTHING DESIGN CALCULATION:

As per designing steps:

Area and soil resistivity: As per initial design
assessment the area for grounding assume as square
20m×20m grid with no ground rods area A becomes
400 m2 shown in Fig.2 average normal resistivity ρ
of 40Ω-m is based on soil resistivity’s measurement
by wenner’s four pin method. Mesh voltage Em:

Conduct size: The 11KV Bus fault value 5798.69A

Should be used to size the grounding conductor. the
required cross sectional area of conductor in circular
mils is

The mesh voltage is greater than that of tolerable

touch voltage (i.e. 718.9 versus 701.8 ) .The grid
design must be modified.
The preliminary design will be modified by
including 20 ground rods, each 7.5 m (24.6 ft) long,
around the perimeter of the grid. As shown in Fig.3
Proceedings of IRF International Conference, 26th September 2015, Mumbai, India, ISBN: 978-93-85832-04-8
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 Optimization Of Earthing System In Industrial Plant

Table8. Grounding parameters (after modification).

Fig.3:Earthing mat design with rods

After modification LT = 440 + 20 ( 7 . 5) = 590 m ,

The revised GPR is (9159.8)(0.9) = 8329.2 V, which
is still much greater than 701.8 V.

Mesh voltage and Step voltages Es: Table9. Results for grounding without rods

KS- Geometrical Spacing Factor to Determine Step

Voltage Now the calculated mesh voltage is lower
than the tolerable touch voltage (650.316V versus
701.8 V), The computedEs is well below the
tolerable step voltage .That is, 991.65 V is much less
than 2333.02 V. Modification of design is not
necessary now. Detailed design.A safer design has Table10. Results for grounding with rods
been obtained. Manual constructions will continue
the detail design.

VI. RESULTS

Table7. Grounding parameters

Table11. Specifications

Proceedings of IRF International Conference, 26th September 2015, Mumbai, India, ISBN: 978-93-85832-04-8
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 Optimization Of Earthing System In Industrial Plant

less than tolerable step and touch voltages. Soil

resistivity and earth resistance has been tested and
achieved as less than 1Ω for 33KV/11KV grid and
small substations ,other locations of plant as 1 Ω -5
Ω.This earth resistance values are considered as best
values for the plant which provides human and
equipment safety. Manual calculation results of earth
mat design has been analysed with MATLAB
programming results which are more satisfactory
results.

REFERENCES

[1]. "IEEE 80-2000 IEEE Guide for Safety in AC

CONCLUSION
Conventional pipe and plate earthing pits are replaced
by earth mat where earth mat is preferred for
substation earthing of plant because of space saving
on ground level. Modification of industrial plant
earthing mat design steps and hand calculations
account for optimization of earthing system where
we have achieved actual step and touch voltages are
Substation Grounding."
[2]. Lim, S.C.; Gomes, C.; Nourirad, G.; Kadir, M.Z.A.A.
"Significance of localized soil resistivity in designing a
grounding system", 2014 IEEE 8th International Power
Engineering and Optimization Conference (PEOCO), ,
on page(s): 324 – 329
[3]. Mohammad Ali Adelian, “Improvement of Substation
Earthing “April 2014 (IJEAT) International Journal of
Engineering and Advanced Technology Volume-3,
Issue-4.
[4]. M.H.Shwedi, Umar M.Johar , T. R. SHELTAMI “
Toward safe grounding to Industrial Plants Saudi
Arebia case study”2009 20th International conference
on electricity distribution paper 0022.Goren,
[5]. Turan“Electric Power Distribution System
engineeringi.” CRC Press. 2008.

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Proceedings of IRF International Conference, 26th September 2015, Mumbai, India, ISBN: 978-93-85832-04-8
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