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Comparative Study between IEEE Std.

80-2000
and Finite Elements Method application for
Grounding Systems Analysis
L. M. Coa

Abstract- This paper presents a brief compilation of typical III. THE SOFTWARE
and particular cases of grounding systems calculation using SPATC program was designed in Inelectra S.A.C.A. for the
procedures proposed by IEEE std 80-200 [1], simulated by
means of a software developed under the mathematical tool calculation of the determining parameters in the design of
Matlab, based on the Finite Elements Method [2]. This study grounding systems. This program was developed under the
consists, basically, of tables and graphics that shows a series of calculations tool Matlab from Mathworks, Inc.
interesting results and offer a reliable and practical instrument One of the most important characteristics of the SPATC is
for the grounding systems design. its capacity to collect the data of the grounding system from a
dxf file generated once made the drawing of the ground grid in
Index Terms--Ground potential rise, ground resistance, AutoCAD.
programming, protections, step voltage, touch voltage.
The program allows the user to select a dxf file that
I. NOMENCLATURE contains all the data relative to dimensions of the ground grid,
offering a graphical interface and avoiding therefore the
1g Ground fault current. tedious work of having to introduce this information
tf Fault duration time. manually.
h Grounding system depth. This characteristic of the program required of a
Rg Ground resistance considerable time for the establishment of a pattern within the
hs Surface material thickness. dxf file that allowed locating the information needed for the
H First layer thickness. SPATC to accomplish the calculations. It was a delicate stage
p Uniform soil resistivity. of the process, considering that when drawing up a simple line
Pi First layer resistivity. in AutoCAD, the generated dxf file is an ASCII file conformed
P2 Second layer resistivity. by approximately 6 thousand lines of characters.
Ps Surface material resistivity. The SPATC (Fig. 1) offers to the user a graphical interface
that facilitates the introduction of data for the grounding
system simulation, allows in addition to review the obtained
II. INTRODUCTION results in a organized way, including graphs and a written
T HE simplified techniques for grounding systems design in report with the data and the results of the simulated project.
substations and transmission lines allow those persons
with a basic training in these type of systems, to be able to
make this work having no need of the use of more complex
calculation tools. However, in some particular cases the
results obtained by these means do not reproduce accurately
the reality and, in general lines, the system may be oversized
to accomplish with the applying norms and recommendations.
In some cases, the problems founded in the practice can't be
analyzed using simplified techniques without incurring in
important errors, so it can be necessary to use more complex
calculation algorithms.

L. M. Coa is with Inelectra S.A.C.A., Lecheria, Anzoategui, Venezuela


(email: luis.coaginelectra.com).

1-4244-0288-3/06/$20.00 2006 IEEE


2

As it is appraised in Fig. 2, the SPATC allows to directly finite element. The transfer resistances, mutual resistances and
introduce the data in the initial screen; this screen is self-resistances for the segments are represented as VDFs
conformed by the following parts: (Voltage Distribution Factors) and the association between the
voltage and currents in the conductor segment i, is:
n
Vi==RtjIj (1)
j=l
Where:
Rtu VDF between segments i andj (self is i =j).
Vi Potential at conductor segment i.
I1 Current flowing into earth from segmentj.
n Total segments number.
Due to the low resistance of the conductor material,
generally it is assumed that the entire ground grid is at the
same potential; thus, the voltage of all the segments will be
approximately equal, so:
VO = V1 = V2 Vn V
And then, the equations for each conductor segment will be
as follow:
n
V =
RtljIj
rig. z. 3IAI C main screen. j=1
n

A. Suelo (Soil)
V= YRt2jIj
j=1
This panel contains the fields corresponding to the soil
model for which is going to make the simulation. It contains
n
the following fields:
V = E, RtnjIj
1) Modelo del Suelo (Soil Model). j=1
2) Profundidad del l er Estrato (First layer thickness). With the equations system above, the value for the
3) Resistividad del ler Estrato (First layer resistivity). potential V is assumed to calculate the currents flowing into
4) Resistividad del 2do Estrato (Second layer resistivity). earth.
5) Capa Adicional Superficial (Surface material). Once obtained the currents, other parameters, as the ground
6) Altura (Height). resistance, GPR and the surface potential at any point, can be
7) Resistividad (Resistivity). calculated:
B. Datos del Proyecto (Project Data) R9 = V (2)
In this panel the technical data for the simulations are II + I2 +I3 + ...+In
introduced, more ahead that data will be also included in the GPR = Ig9Rg
final report. (3)
n
1) Nombre del Proyecto (Project name). VA = jRtAJIj (4)
2) Corriente de Falla (Groundfault current). j=l
3) Profundidad del SPAT (Grounding system depth). Where RtAj is the VDF (or transfer resistance) between the
4) Conductor. conductor segmentj and point A.
C. Resultados (Results) Meliopoulos presents VDFs tabulated by transfer
It contains the information referred to the results obtained resistances, mutual resistances and self-resistance for
in the simulation. conductor segments oriented along the three coordinate axes
x, y or z [2].
IV. THE METHODOLOGY For two-layered soil models the procedure is the same, but
the VDFs equations are relatively more complex, due to the
The program was based on the method described by multiples images produced by boundary conditions between
Meliopoulos for grounding systems analysis [2]. layers; however, the equations used for these cases start from
Basically, it consists on getting the system partitioned into the same principle described by Meliopoulos [2].
n finite conductor segments and assuming that the current on
each one of the segments is uniformly distributed along the
.M . . H.iI
3

V. THE SIMULATION grounding system, the maximum limit for touch voltages is
For effects of validating the results in this document, the violated. Among other graphs offered by the program (Fig. 8),
cases exposed in the Annex B of the IEEE std 80-2000 were are those of touch voltages contours and the two-dimensions
used as a departure point [1], for which there are, next, graphs for touch and step voltages in trajectories previously
comparative tables and the corresponding graphs. indicated.
For the considered cases, the design data are the following vdltaj-s tie Tolue an el Perirretro de la lalla

ones:
Ig 1908 A. duo
1cO
tf 0.5 s. 700
p 400 Q.m.
Ps 2500 Q.m.
sh = 0.102m. bO
cz
h =0.5m

A. Square grid without ground rods 0,c


?ni
ao
100

Fig. 7. Maximum and real touch voltages for case 1.

l...
...~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~...
~.... ..

I I|
I.-..........-- U.......... SE

|
ii l
.. ..._lugg

I ! 1
Fig. 6. Square grid without ground rods.

These are the obtained results using both techniques.


Fig. 8. Graphs contained in the results folder.
TABLE I
COMPARATIVE TABLE FOR CASE 1 Finally, another of the most important advantages of the
SPATC is the possibility of obtaining a written report that
IEEE std 80-2000 SPATC contains the data and results of the project, specifying the
Ground resistance 2.78 Q 2.62 Q touch and step voltages with its coordinates and
GPR 5304 V 4996.22 V corresponding status.
IEEE Standard 80 method gives in addition results for Proyecto ej1(1)
If: 1908[Amps]
Fecha: 25/3/2006 Hora: 17:53:33

maximum allowable touch and step voltages, as well as the t: 0.5[seg]


Resistividad 1: 400 [Ohm-m]
maximum real voltages in the system for which the Altura de Capa Adicional en Superficie: 0.102[m]
PLesistividad de Capa Adicional en Superficie: 2500[Ohm-m]
calculations are being made. For this example the following Diametro de Conductor: 0.01 [m]
results were obtained: Resistencia de Malla: 2.6186[Ohm s]
GPR: 4 996. 222 [Volts]
Longitud aproximada del conductor: 1540 [m]

Maximum allowable touch voltage 838.2 V Reporte de Voltajes de Toque y Voltajes de Paso
Maximum real touch voltage. 1002.1 V X [mr] Y [mrr] St [v] Status Y [mY] v s [ V] Statu s

0.00 0.00 941.39 EXCEDE 0.00 36.80 OK


For which the SPATC offers the following graph (Fig. 7) 1.75
3.50
0.00
0.00
745.45
658.59
OK
OK
1 .75
3.50
31.15
108.75
OK
OK
that comprises of the set of 7 graphs included in the folder 5.25 0.00 547.41 OK 5.25 20 7 28 OK
Fig. 9. Written report segment for the case 1.
with the project results.
In Fig. 7 it is possible to observe how on the corners of the
4

B. Rectangular grid with ground rods C. Equally spaced grid with ground rods in two-layer soil
The following example extracted from the IEEE Standard In order to illustrate the simulation of grounding systems
80 annexes consists of a mesh that, in this case, includes for two-layered soil model cases (Which apply to most of the
vertical ground rods (Fig. 10) [1]. cases in the practice), the B.5 example of the IEEE Standard
84fm 80 annexes was used; this arrangement is shown in Fig. 12
[1].
.r~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- -- n-TI 44 i SO.gm
j

E
w

Ir
I
I --I 0 .1 -"
I -- loooow -M
Fig. 10. Rectangular grid with 10 m ground rods.

For which the following results were obtained:


TABLE II
COMPARATIVE TABLE FOR CASE 2

IEEE std 80-2000 SPATC Fig. 12. C. Equally spaced grid with ground rods in two-layer soil.
Ground resistance 2.62 Q 2.25 Q
And the results obtained from the calculation of this case
GPR 4998.96 V 4298.1 V
follows:
are as

The results for maximum and real touch voltages calculated TABLE III
for the system, for IEEE Standard 80 are as follows [1]. COMPARATIVE TABLE FOR CASE 3

Maximum allowable touch voltage 838.2 V IEEE std 80-2000 SPATC


Maximum real touch voltage 595.8 V Ground resistance 1.353 Q 1.359 Q
GPR 2581.52 V 2592.97
Whereas the results obtained by the SPATC for this second
case, are in the following graph (Fig. 11). It can be observed that, for this case, when the ground
resistance value obtained is low, the difference on the results
V ltFje5 de ToqLe en el Pe-imc -ro do la Mhalla
is almost insignificant. This small difference for the ground
*300 resistances brings as a consequence a proportional difference
between the GPR results for each one of the methods.
1cL 5

Additional, the computer program of EPRI TR-10622,


applied for this case in the IEEE Standard 80 [1], gives the
:: 400-
following results for the critical voltages.
z 00

Em 49.66 % of GPR
Soo
Es 18.33 % of GPR
200

1c While the SPATC offers Fig. 13 as a result to evaluate


100
touch voltages (These are, in fact, the most critical potential
differences in a grounding system design) in the simulated
system, in addition to the two-dimension graphs for touch and
c

Fig. 11. Maximum and real touch voltages for case 2. step voltages in trajectories previously specified.
5

V;oltaju- d- Toqje en PI PPerimi*ot du la M1ala

IX. BIOGRAPHY

Luis Coa was born in Barcelona,


1Lw*- Anzoategui Venezuela, on May 24, 1983.
He graduated from the Universidad de
Oriente.
His employment experience includes
Inelectra, S.A.C.A. His special field of
interest includes programming, grounding
Systems, digital systems.

ar)
40~ 60
40
20

Fig. 13. Maximum and real touch voltages for case 3.

VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of S.
Meliopoulos for his previously research on this topic.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
One of the differences between both previously studied
methods is the form in which the critical voltages for the
calculated system are given. During the development of the
SPATC a great importance was paid on knowing not only the
value for the maximum real touch voltage in the system, but
also these voltages behavior in all the area occupied by the
simulated ground grid, since this allows to locate points of
special interest on the corresponding planes of the facilities, in
such a way that is possible to take the necessary preventive
actions at the time of execute a grounding system design.
It can be observed in addition, that exists a differences
pattern between the results of ground resistance and therefore
of GPR; the values given by the method proposed by IEEE
Standard 80 are generally more pessimists, even when this
factor is not necessarily unfavorable it can take the design to
an oversizing.
Also it was stated, by means of the simulations, the fact
that the most critical touch voltages can be found in the
corners for rectangular meshes cases, as observed for case 1 in
Fig. 7.
Finally it is possible to affirm that the finite elements
methods represent without a doubt a very effective instrument
for the grounding systems study, since they offer the
possibility of making a closest to the reality detailed analysis.
In spite of involving more complex algorithms of calculations
that requires the use of computational tools, is necessary to
consider that, nowadays, needing a computer is not really a
limitation.

VIII. REFERENCES
[1] IEEE Guide for Safety in AC Substation Grounding, IEEE Std 80-2000
(Revision of IEEE Std 80-1986). New York, USA. 2000.
[2] 5. Meliopoulos, Power System Grounding and Transients, Marcel
Dekker, Inc. New York, USA. 1998.

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