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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS. VOL 31. NO 3. MAY 1995

A Finite Element Method for Calculating the Electromagnetic Fields Generated by Substation Grounding Systems
B. Nekhoul, C. Guerin, P. Labie, G. Meunier and R. Feuillet
Laboratoire d'Electrotechniquede Grenoble, LEG ,URA CNRS 355, ENSIEG, INPG, BP 46, 38402 Saint Martin d'HSres Cedex France.

X. Bnmotte
Cedrat Recherche, 10 chemin du Pri-cure, ZIRST 4301, 38943 Meylan Cedex France.

A b s t r a c t - This paper develops a basic idea which allows low frequency electromagnetic fields generated by cylindrical conductors, with very small radii compared with their lengths, to be calculated. The proposed method can be applied to both overhead conductors and those buried in a conducting environment. The paper presents a direct application for this concept which consists in calculating electromagnetic fields created by a substation grounding system following an accidental short circuit or a stroke of lightning. The Finite Element Method (FEM) with several formulations will be used. Currents in the cylindrical conductors which make up the earth network grid are taken into account without volume meshing; simple line discretization of these will be carried out. Electromagnetic fields generated by leakage currents and currents induced underground a r e t a k e n into account. Furthermore, open boundaries of both air and earth environments are processed by introducing a spatial transformation. This application for an earth network enables us to show the advantages of FEM processing compared with the method traditionally used in antenna theory for this kind of problem.

I. INTRODUCTION
During a fault on a power network, due to an accidental short circuit or stroke of lightning, after the transient state some metal parts of Air Insulation Substations (AIS) may become live. In order to avoid this and to allow fast discharge, most of these parts are linked to a safety system called the "grounding system". This safety system is a group of cylindrical conductors which for an AIS consists of a grid buried underground at an average depth of about 0.5m. The fault currents, which are generally homopolar, flow through the earth network. The mass loop is often very widespread, leakage currents underground can be high (100 kA), their electromagnetic emission may cause disturbances in equipment in the substation itself (remote control, telemeasurements and telephones) and stepup voltage (voltage between two human legs at lm) may be dangerous for people nearby. Quantification by calculating electromagnetic emission from the grounding systems has already been approached by F. Dawalibi et al. [l]. The solution proposed consists in solving Maxwell equations numerically under their integral forms; this method is better known as "integral formalism" and is often used in antenna theory [l]. In this formalism, calculation is generally carried out in two steps : calculation
Manuscript received July 6, 1994.

of currents and then fields or vice-versa. When accounting for the two infinite semi-environments (air and earth), the authors introduce boundary integrals and Sommerfeld integrals which enable them to process change in environment [ 11 (air-earth or earth-air). The formalism proposed is therefore very difficult to implement and extremely heavy numerically. Furthermore, it only allows calculation of fields generated by currents running through conductors which are horizontal or vertical, overhead or underground. This work plans to solve formulations which will enable the problem of electromagnetic emission from the earth network to be dealt with by the E M . The advantage of this modelling is that calculation in several steps can be avoided; a single set of equations is solved in only one step. Modelling with FEM is easier to implement and less CPU time consuming because the two infinite semi-environments are accounted for with spatial transformations rather than with boundary integrals and moving from one environment to another is ensured by linking the different formulations used. Furthermore, this solution is more accurate because the fields calculated are those caused by both currents in the conductors making up the earth network and leakage currents flowing in earth. Moreover, the problem can be dealt with whatever the position of the conductor or its geometry, which means that different kinds of earth network (vertical pole, radiating arm, etc.) can be processed. 11. FINITE ELEMENT FORMULATIONS

In the problem we are dealing with three elements (materials) to come into play : cylindrical copper conductors, ground and air. For this reason, different formulations are used to describe the physical phenomena in each domain (low conducting volume "ground" area, line conducting "copper" area and non-conducting volume "air" area). Physical analysis of the problem of electromagnetic field generated by buried network shows that it can be solved with an AV formulation in conducting areas, this being justified by the presence of currents in the buried conductors and in the ground and by change in conductivity when moving from the conductor to the ground and vice-versa. A vector potential A or a total magnetic scalar potential cp formulation may be used in the air. This modelling of earth emission owes a great deal to 0. Biro's et al. work [ 2 ] .In this study they highlight the use of magnetic vector potential A when dealing with eddy currents. For conducting volume areas, the AV volume formulation is generally used. This formulation is translated, for an isotropic, homogeneous and linear environment by the two following equations :

0018-9464/95$04.00 0 1995 IEEE

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I,

- 4

( 1 (rot w).(rot
II

A) + I(divw) (divA)

+ 0jjoW.A + oW.gradV) dR = 0
4 4

4 4

4 -

(1) (2)

IQ(O&&w.(jjoA + gradV)) dQ = 0

S: section of conductor, h: length of conductor and R: volume of conductor. This way of writing the volume integral means that volume meshing of the cylindrical conductors can be avoided. Only line discretization of the conductor is needed and then the AV formulation has to be written in a "line" form. The equation system giving the AV formulation then becomes:

w: weighting function of a scalar potential for a volume element. W: weighting function of a vector potential for a volume element. For non-conducting areas (air) with source current, the magnetic vector potential A formulation is generally used. This formulation is translated by the following equation :

lA

S( 1 (rotWMotA) + 1 (divWh)(divA)

---.

-4

+ 0joWh.A + oWh.gradV) dX = 0
4 -

- 4

--

(5)
(6)

S ( ~ g G w ~ . ( j j o+ A gradv)) dh = 0
Jh

jn(k(z $.(z si> + I

P

(divw) (divA) dR = 0

Numerical processing with FEM is often CPU time consuming. In order to optimise this, the number of unknowns has to be reduced by using as few vectorial magnitudes as possible. In the air, this CPU time is saved by introducing the formulation called total magnetic scalar ' potential, given by the following equation :

-7

(3)

WA:weighting function of a scalar potential for a line element. WA: weighting function of a vector potential for a line element. It should however be noticed that this way of writing is only valid on condition that the thickness of the skin is greater than the diameter of the conductor. IV. OPENBOUNDARY DOMAIN MODELLING A simple physical analysis of the problem of substation grounding system shows the need for including open boundaries of semi-environments (air and ground) and particularly that of the ground. It is obvious that the earth resistance, therefore the flow of current in the grid and underground, depends on the "ground" volume that is taken into account. Indeed, considering that the bare conductors are in direct contact with the low conducting ground, it is obvious that the equivalent resistance of grid and ground depends on the amount of "ground" included. For taking into account of open boundary problems, FEM provides several modelling methods [41: - truncation: the domain to be modelled is surrounded by a box, as big as possible, and boundary conditions corresponding to infinity (potentials are set to zero) or to a tangential field or a normal field [2] are imposed on the faces of this box. The bigger the box, the smaller the error. - inclusion of infinity with open boundaries by boundary integrals - infinite elements - use of spatial transformations [5-6]. - etc... For substation grounding systems, the dimensions of the buried grid may be some hundred metres. It is then clear that correct processing of emission from the earth network means mobilising huge calculation capacities where finite element processing is carried out by truncation. In order to model infinity correctly without increasing the size of the problem, we have chosen to use the method based on spatial transformation [S-61.

JQ(p

(Gw ) . k Z 9))dR = 0
111. LINEAV FORMULATION

(4)

cp: total magnetic scalar potential.

In finite element approximation, the domain to be studied is discretized into elements (volume, surface and lines). Sometimes the geometry of an area of the problem to be modelled shows a particular disproportion where dimensions are concerned (e.g. thin plate, thin cylindrical conductor, etc.). This type of geometry introduces drawbacks during 3D meshing using an automated mesh generator. Such type of geometry leads to a large number of elements which can increase the size of the problem considerably and upsets numerical processing. This geometrical constraint leads us to suggest, for a conductor with a very small radius compared to its length, another form for the AV formulation which will be set out in the following. For a cylindrical conductor, with low frequency harmonic current, with a diameter small enough compared to its length (thin wire structure) it can easily be shown that vector A and scalar V potentials are constant on a surface perpendicular to the axis of the conductor. This has been shown for the case of thin conducting shells in [3].

Fig. 1. Line device.

On this condition, energy in the conductor is preserved by translating the volume integral as follows.

A. Principle of the Method

The method consists of converting the initial open boundary problem into a closed boundary problem using spatial transformation. Consider that the open boundary

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domain E is the sum of a closed internal subdomain Eint, treated using FEM and of an extemal open subdomain, E,,[. We then-have: E = Eint U Eext. The real external domain is linked to the closed image domain, Eext-image. by means of a bijective transformation as it appears in figure 2. This domain E&t-image is meshed by classical finite element and used to solve the problem with the finite element method. The best method for taking into account the transformation is to consider that the elements of the image domain (which is meshed with classical elements) allows to define on the real extemal a new type of elements (we called mapped finite elements), as shown in figure 2. As a consequence, this method may be applied to any finite element formulations. In paper [6], this method was applied to model air for magnetostatic scalar problem. In this study, we take into account the two infinite semi-environments, the air (A or cp formulation) and the earth including eddy currents in ground (AV formulation).

boundary elements between the air region and the earth to ensure field continuity. V. FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING Figure 3 recapitulates FEM modelling of the problem of electromagnetic fields generated by substation grounding system.

an (cp: total magnehc

Fig. 3. Regions, boundary sections and interfaces. Real open boundary domain Closed and meshed ,image domain

The problem described on the above diagram is not complete if interface conditions are not determined. In order to ensure continuity of the field between the areas modelled, continuity conditions must be introduced on the interfaces. Use of the vector potential A has been studied in paper [21 who explains the different couplings which can ensure conditions of continuity between formulations.
VI. APPLICATION

mapped element image element element of reference Fig. 2. Mapped, image and.reference elements.

B. Application f o r Modelling the Two Infinite SenziEnvironments Air and Ground

Compared to [5], the interesting point for this infinite modelling method come from the two infinite semienvironments, air and earth including eddy currents in ground. The physical properties of these two regions are different, as well as formulations (AV formulation for the ground with eddy currents, A or cp formulation for the air), Geometrically speaking to obtain the two infinite semienvironments, we used the parallelepiped shell mapping [6] cut into two parts in y equal to zero plane (figure 3). From a numerical point of view, nothing special would be necessary to do in the software when dealing with air using A formulation and ground with AV formulation, because the coupling is then implicit (continuity of the normal component of the flux density is ensured as A is continuous between two nodal elements and the continuity of the tangential component of the magnetic field is ensured in a weakly sense from the governing equations). In this study, we preferred the use of scalar formulation (cp) to take into account the semi-environment air. It is then necessary to apply the mapping on the volume elements as well as on the

Figure 4.a represents a 60mx60m grid buried 0.5m from the air-ground interface, giving a rough idea of the substation grounding system. A 1 kA current at a lOHz frequency is injected in the middle. Results of calculation for this typical example are given by F. Dawalibi et al. [l]. All the results of simulations which are given in this paragraph are those obtained on an 80mx80m working matrix placed on the airground interface.

Fig 4 a. A square grounding grid subject IS a lightning stroke.

- Characteristics of the ground are: - Characteristics of the grid are:

ps= po
; ps = 1000 Rm
;

= 5Eo.

pC=po; ; pc = 1.7 1 0 8 R m ; =EO. rc = 0.5 cm (radius of the conductors).

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Considering the size of the grid, we have used the spatial transformation for modelling the two open boundary semienvironments. This means the size of the problem can be reduced. The ground is taken to be an isotropic, homogeneous and linear environment.

The FEM can be applied to determine the potential in earth and the resistance of grounding network for any complex electrode. In table 1 are confronted the results obtained by F. Dawalibi et al. [7] and the proposed method.
TABLE 1. Comparison of the results.

Variable Resistance (Q)

I I

FEM 6

Ref [7]

7.33

Results of calculation obtained with FEM compare well with those obtained by F. Dawalibi et al. both from the point of view of general shape and amplitude. Amplitude obtained with FEM are slightly higher (in the magnetic field and in the electric field); This may be explained by the fact that fields emitted by leakage current underground are included in the formalism, which is not the case for the method proposed by F. Dawalibi et al. where only currents running through conductors intervene.
Fig. 4.b. Magnetic field on Earth surface (Results obtained with FEM).

VII. CONCLUSION Comparison between these results of FEM calculation and those published by F. Dawalibi et al. has shown that FEM modelling is more than acceptable. FEM has several advantages which have already been mentioned, the most important being easier and cheaper implementation for including open boundary semi-environments, conductivity variation, calculating the magnetic field at any point in space (air and ground), the electric field underground and to avoid the use of Sommerfeld integrals [l], which are very difficult to solve exactly and are very cpu time consuming, contrary to the E M . The general shape of results obtained with E M can be improved by refining the mesh. This should increase the size of the problem and inevitably cpu time. This has not already been verified. It would be interesting for further work to process the same problem at very high frequency. A finite element solution of the problem would certainly be advantageous. It is possiblc to take into account several layers of the ground with different properties with the mapped boundary elements.

?.I

Disunce flma 9 h i s (m)

Fig. 4.c. Magnetic field on Earth surface (Results published in.[l]).

REFERENCES
[ I ] W. Xiong, F. P. Dawalibi and A. Selby, "Frequency Response of Substation Ground Systems Subject to Lightning Strikes", GIGRE International Symposium, Power System Electromagnetic Compatibility. Switzerland, Lausanne 93. 100-06. [2] 0. Biro and K. Preis, "On the Use of the Magnetic Vector Potential in the Finite Element Analysis of the Three Dimensional Eddy Current", IEEE Trans. on Magnetics, Vol. 25. No 4. July 1989, pp 3145-3159. [3] T. Nakata, N. Takahasi, IC. Fujiwara and Y. Shiraki, "3D Magnetic Field Analysis Using Special Elements", IEEE Trans. on Magnetics, vol. 26, No 5, September 1990, pp. 2379-2381. [ 4 ] C.R.I. Emson, "Methods for the solution of open boundary electromagnetic field problems", IEE Proc, Vol. 135, P t . A, N"3, March 1988. [SI X. Brunotte, G. Meunier and J.P. Bonigiraud, "Ship magnetizations Modelling by the Finite Element Method", IEEE. Trans. on magnetics, Vol. 29, No 2, pp. 1970-1975, March 1993. [6] X. Brunotte, G. Meunier and J. F. Imhoff, "Finite element solution of unbounded problems using transformation: a rigorous powerful and emy solution", IEEE Trans. on magnetics, Vol. 25, No 2, March 1992, pp. 1663-1666,. [7] F. Dawalibi and D.Mukhadar, "Optimum Design of Substation in Two Layer Earth Structure, Part 1- Analytical Study , IEEE Trans on PAS, Vol. PAS-94, No 2. pp. 252-261, March / April 1975.

Fig. 4.d. Electric field on Earth surface (Results obtained with E M ) .

A'=

Disuncs AbulX Axis (m)

Fig. 4.e. Electric field on Earth surface (Results published in [I].