IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 5. No. 4.
November 1990
AN ELECTROMAGNETIC MODEL FOR TRANSIENTS IN GROUNDING SYSTEMS
Leonid Grcev, Member IEEE
University of Skopje, Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
P. 0. Box 574, 91000 Skopje, Yugoslavia
ABSTRACT A unified approach for calculatzng the low and
high frequency, and the transient performance of a network of
grounding conductors is given. Results which are derived first in
the frequency domain, are converted to the time domain by Fast
Fourier Transform algorithms. A grounding system is modeled
by an ensemble of thin-wire conductor segments. The computer
model used to determine the electric fields and current distribu-
tion in and around a grounding system is described and its main
limitations discussed.
KEYWORDS: Electromagnetic Fields, Transient perfor-
mance, Time Harmonic Performance, Computer Modeling,
Grounding.
1 Introduction
There is a massive body of literature describing the performance
of wire conductors energized at low and high frequencies in space,
air or soil. It is impossible to list all major research contributions
in this research field. T h e reader is referred to the national
and international journals devoted to the subject of antennas
and propagation, geophysical prospecting and electromagnetic
compatibility for an overview of the recent advances in this field.
However useful materials pertinent to this research paper can be
found in the References section.
Most of the cited work however has concentrated on t,he
response of metallic structures excited by a voltage applied
to two closely spaced (but isolated) feed point terminals lo-
cated on the energized structures or by an incident electromag-
netic field illuminating the structures (Adams[2], Burke[5],
Miller[l4],Mitra[l5,16], Olsen[l7]). Another important por-
tion of the work specializes in electromagnetic geophysical
prospecting where some methods use short rods immersed in
a dissipative medium (Wait[26]).
There are only a few published research works involving high
frequency performance of power system grounding structures.
Pioneering work was conducted by Sunde in the late thirties. His
work culminated in the publication of his well known reference
book (Sunde[23]). Recently, several papers (Mazzettie[l2],
90 lili.I 130-5 PiRD A paper recommended and approved
by t h e IEEE S u b s t a t i o n s Committee of t h e IEEE Power
E n g i n e e r i n g S o c i e t y f o r p r e s e n t a t i o n a t t h e IEEE/PES
1990 Winter Meeting, A t l a n t a , Georgia, F e b r u a r y
-
4 8, 1990. Manuscript s u b m i t t e d August 27, 1989;
made a v a i l a b l e f o r p r i n t i n g December 27, 1989.
0885-8977/90/1100-1773$01.00 Q 1990 IEEE
1773
Farid Dawalibi, Senior Member IEEE
Safe Engineering Services & technologies
1544 Viel, Montreal, Canada
Meliopoulos[l3],Velazquez[25] ) proposed time-domain solu-
tions to transient problems based on transmission line theory.
This approach, however, is strictly valid for long horizontal con-
ductors and is not suited for the analysis of vertical conductors
and arbitrary interconnected conductors. Refer to the work of
Pluniey[l9] for an interesting discussion of this topic. Another
publication by Takashima[24] accounted for the effects of soil
permittivity but ignored induction effects. A recent publica-
tion by Papalexopoulos[l8] examined the transient problem
using a time-domain approach but restricted the analysis to fre-
quencies low enough to satisfy the condition that the integration
path dependent component of the electrical field is negligible (in
practice for frequencies on the order of 0.1 to 0.5 MHz depend-
ing on the size of the substation grounding). Research work
by Dawalibi[G,i]analyzed the response of practical grounding
grids using electromagnetic field theory in the frequency domain.
Although the solution was formulated for low and high frequen-
cies, the analytical expressions used in the computer model were
derived based on the quasi-static assumption to avoid direct nu-
merical integration of the general solution. Later Grcev devel-
oped in his P h D. thesis [8] the methodology for the analysis of
arbitrary grounding conductors at all frequencies based on com-
putational techniques involving the method of moments, numer-
ical integration of Soinmerfeld integrals and Fast Fourier Trans-
forms ( F F T ) in a way similar t o the approach used by Burke
[14,5]. T h e initial computer model which resulted from this work
was specialized to horizontal linear conductors (Grcev[S]).
This paper summarizes the follow-on research work which ex-
tends the computer model to a network of interconnected ground
conductors and discusses the advantages and limitations of the
model. Detailed numerical results for practical grounding sys-
tems will be presented in a future publication.
2 Frequency Domain Analysis
The transient problem is first solved by a formulation in the fre-
quency domain. T h e time-domain response is then obtained by
application of a suitable Fourier inversion technique. T h e re-
sponse to a steady-state, time harmonic excitation is computed
for a wide range of frequencies starting at OHz. From this fre-
quency response, a transfer function is constructed for every fre-
quency considered. T h e transfer function is dependent only on
the geometric and electromagnetic properties of the grounding
system and its environment.
If i ( t )represents the injected current at a point in the ground-
ing system, and r ( t ) denotes an observed response, then
z ( t ) = 3- { W ( j W ) . F[Z(t)]}
 1774
CO, PO Air
Grounding System
Figure 1: Illustration of the Physical Situation.
where F and F-are the Fourier and inverse Fourier transforms,
respectively, and w is the angular frequency and where j = R.
Since the Fourier transform is straight-forwardly computed
using F F T algorithms [16], the major part of t,he problem is to
compute the transfer function V V ( j w ) .
The physical model is based on the following assumptions.
The earth and the air media. are homogeneous and occupy
half-spaces with a common horizontal plane boundary be-
tween them.
The earth and the grounding electrodes exhibit linear and
isotropic, arbitrary characteristics.
The grounding system is assumed to be made of cylindrical
metallic conductors with arbitrary orienta.tion. However,
they are assumed to be subject to the thin-wire approxi-
mation, i.e., the ratio of the length of the conductor seg-
ment to its radius is ,> 1 . In practice a ratio of about 10 is
satisfactory. See Adams[l] for a detailed discussion of the
implications of the thin-wire approximation.
Energization occurs by the injection of a current impulse
of arbitrary sha.pe produced by an ideal current generator
with one terminal connected to the grounding system, and
the other to the ground at, infinity. The influence of t,he
connecting leads is ignored.
The subscripts 0 and 1 in Figure 1 and in the following text refer
to air and soil cha.racteristics, respectively.
3 The Matheiliatical Model
The first step in the development of the mathematical model is
to determine the current distribution in the grounding system
for a time-harmonic excitation for a number of appropriate fre-
quencies. This task is conducted in two steps. First the solution
for the unbounded conducting medium case is obtained, then
the effects of the air-soil interface is accounted for in the final
expression as explained hereafter.
3.1 Unbounded Conducting Medium
In this Section, we start first with lossless conductors. Then the
lossy case is introduced (See equations ( 5 ) and (6)).
Figure 2 illustrates two conductor segments of the grounding
systems under consideration. T h e position of a. point on t,he a.xis
of a segment is defined by a vector r and that of a point on the
surface S of a segment is defined as vector r. The vect.or t rep-
resents the unit vector along the segment axis and t represents
the axial unit vector tangential to the segment surface.
In t,he general case the total electric field E in t,he ground can
be considered a.s the sum of an impressed electric field Et and
General Coordinate
System
Figure 2: Seginent Coiifiguration/Iiiteractioii.
a scat,tered electric field E. See Harrington[lO] for a. detailed
description of this analytical approa.ch. The so-called sca.t tered
field E is the results of the currents a.nd charges induced in the
grounding system by the impressed electric field E
The expression for the induced currents is derived by stat-
ing the boundary conditions for t,he tangential component of
the electric field at the surface of the conductor segment,s. The
boundary condition at the surface of a lossless conductor seg-
ment imposes the following equation. Note that because of t,hr
thin-wire approximation, the equation requires only t,he axial
component of the electric field at the conductor surfa.ce.
t . (E + E ) = 0 (2)
The sca.ttered electric field E produced by the axial elec-
tric currents l e and cha.rges g t in t,he grounding system can be
expressed in terms of ret,arded pot,ential integrals as follows. Ap-
pendix A provides a brief description of the steps involved in the
derivation (Mitra[l5]):
E
-
-
1
-(VV . - 7 ; )
4*J.<, 1 t . It(r)gl(r,r)dt
Where the integration is carried along the axis e of the ground-
ing system conductors and where
e x p ( - x Ir - rl), = 2Tf,
g l ( r , r) = &j Ld
7: = --w2p1c1 and c1 = + $.
Here f is the frequency measured in Hz. The conductance
(S/m), permittivity ( F / m ) and permeabilit,y ( H / m ) of the
medium are denoted by U ] , 1 and respect,ively. T h e various
geometric quantities are defined in Figure 2. Not,e t,hat g l ( r , r)
stands for the Greens function for an unbounded medium
(Miller[l4]). Also note that t,he time-variation exp(Jb1f) has
been suppressed throughout this paper.
The required mathematical model follows from the substitu-
tion of ( 3 ) into ( 2 ) . The result of this substitut,ion[l4] yields the
electric field integral equation
where G1 ( r .r) is the dyadic Greens function for the electric
field at r due to a current element at r. Here
 1775
The thin-wire approximation does not imply that the finite
thickness of the conductor segments is neglected since the bound-
ary conditions are applied a t the surface of each segment. Fur-
ther, although the radial currents in the conductors are ignored,
Zt
the model does not neglect the radial leakage currents t o the
ground along each segment.
In the case of lossy conductors, the boundary conditions (2)
need to be modified. In this case the tangential component of the
total electric field at the surface of a conductor segment equals
the internal voltage drop per unit length along the segment.
T h a t is,
t . (Ez+ E) = 1 . Z, (5)
on the conductor surface S. Here Z, is the surface internal
impedance. Let u2, 2 and pz represent the coininon conduc- X
tance, permittivity and permeability of the conductors. We have
(Stratton[l]): General Coordinate
System

Figure 3: Coordinate Systems for Evaluatiou of the Correc-

Here Xz zz u 2 ( p 2 g 2- p l c l ) . T h e radius of the conductor segment
is a . T h e Bessel functions of the first kind of order zero a.nd one
are denoted JO and J 1 , respectively.
3.2 Half-space Conducting Medium
The electromagnetic field generated by current elements
(dipoles) immersed in a half-space conducting medium was rig-
orously treated in 1909 (Sommerfeld[22]).
Based on Sommerfeld work, and following the approach taken
by Miller[l4],the effect of the earth air interface can be taken
into account simply by replacing in (4) the dyadic Greens func-
tion GI (r,r) for an unbounded medium with that corresponding
to a half-space conducting medium. This yields
G(r,r) = G ~ ( r , r -) Gt(r,r)+Go(r,r) (7)
Here the term G,(r,r) represents the dyadic Greens function of
the image of the current element on the conductor segment with
respect to the interface. T h e first two terms in ( 7 ) are equivalent
to the direct application of image theory. They provide the exact
solution only if the frequency is zero. T h e third and last term
Gs(r,r)is a correction term. It can be expressed in terms of
Sominerfeld integrals. T h e latter appear in the expressions
of the electromagnetic field of horizontal and vertical electrical
dipoles immersed in a half-space conducting medium.
For an arbitrary oriented dipole the correction term is given
by a s u m of correction terms associated with an equivalent com-
bination of horizontal and vertical dipoles. See Figure 3.
The correction term can be written as (Miller[l4]):
t,ion Term Gs(r,r).
4 Solution of the Matheiliatical Model
T h e selection of suitable computation methods is critical for the
evaluation of the mathematical model. Because they must rep-
resent a compromise between accuracy, computation time and
complexity of the computer code.
4.1 Integral Equations
The met,hod of moments (Mitra[lG]) permits the reduct,ion of
an integral equation of the kind given by (4) t o a system of
linear equations whose solution can be obtained using st andartl
numerical inversion techniques. This solution which requires a
suitable segment,ation of the grounding conductors, yields the
current, distribution in each conductor segment, and t,angential
electric fields on their surfaces.
Several approaches are encompassed by t,he met.hod of 1110-
ments (Adams[l], Miller[l4],Harrington[lO]).T h e approach
used here (Adanis[2]),although one of the simplest, is very a.c-
cura.te in practice.
First, the grounding system is divided int,o N small segments.
The optimal value of iV is determined by the required a.ccuracy.
Accuracy improves with la.rger values of N , albeit a t the ex-
pense of computation time. However, beyond a. certain number
N , errors due to the violat,ion of the thin-wire a.pproximation
grow quickly and will eventually lead t o a significant decrease i n
accuracy.
The axial current distribution in the network is usually ap-
proximated by a linear combination of M basis functions P,(C).
In general, the current, I ( P ) a t point, t on the grounding net,work
is given by
M
.

I ( l )= Ce .Pt(4 (9)
where RF . . . R; are given in Appendix B, and where x,y, z and
,=1
p, #I and z are unit coordinate vectors for the rectangular and for some coefficients c,. In this work, the M = N piecewise-
cylindrical coordinate systems, respectively. T h e superscripts H
consta.nt basis functions
and V indicate the contributions of the aforementioned horizon-
tal and vertical dipoles, respectively. 1 on the i-th segment; a,nd
P,(4 = 0 otherwise
T h e correction field components and also the complete dipole
fields can be derived in a rather straight-forward manner from
are selected. They give a piecewise constant representatioll of
Maxwells equations subject to the boundary conditions at t h e
the current distribution in which
surface of the ground (Sommerfeld[22]). T h e correction field
components are given in Appendix B.
Equations (4), ( 7 ) and (8) yield the mathematical model.
c,= { I,
0
on the i-th segment; and
otherwise.
1776
I(L) - Stepwise Approximation
t
I, =II
k/ R e d Current
Distribution
c While the first two terms of the kernel
Figure 4: C u r r e n t Distribution o n End-Driven Electrode.
Here I, is a constant approximation to the current distribution
in the 2-th segment. See Figure 4.
A zero current is assumed a t the open ends of a segment.
This is not strictly correct in the case of bare conductors not in
contact with other conductors. It is, however, a valid assumption
in the context of the thin-wire approximation.
To determine the N unknown coefficients I, in (9), a system of
N equations is needed. If the generator current is I,, as for the
case illustrated in Figure 4,the first equation becomes I1 = I,.
The voltages across the 2-th segment is the sum of contribu-
tions from the currents in all segments (Adams[l]). This yields
V , = Iizti + I Z Z ~+Z . . + I N Z , N
Here z,, equals the voltage across the 2-th current segment due
to a unit current through the m-th segment. It corresponds to
an open-circuit impedance in network theory. In electromagnetic
field theory, it has been called (Harrington[lo])a generalized
impedance. It represents, the electromagnetic interaction be-
tween the segments. It depends only on the geometry of the
grounding system, the excitation frequency and the characteris-
tics of the surrounding medium.
In the case of lossless conductors, the value of V, in (10) is
zero, so that the condition 11 = I , and (10) yield
The evaluation of the generalized impedances znm in (11) is
a very important step in the computations. T h e voltage V, is
expressed as the product of the tangential electric field on the
surface of a point at the center of the segment by its length. By
(4), (9) and (10) we have
Vn = -Al,t(r,) . E(rn)
Here At, and A ,! denote the lengths of the n-th and m-th
segments respectively. The central point,s on the surface of the
n-th and on the axis of the m-th segments are denoted by rn
and r l , respectively.
The details concerning the evaluation of the term between the
braces of (12), that is the generalized impedances z, for all
possible configurations of the segments can b e found elsewhere
(Grcev[S]). T h e latter contains further references and a prelim-
inary version of the computer program used in this paper.
When the lossy nature of the conductors is taken into account,
only the main diagonal elements, which represent the general-
ized self-impedances of the segments, have t,o be modified. T h e
diagonal elements become:
zh, = z,,, + Z,AE, (13)
for 1 5 n 5 N . Here Z,is given in ( 6 ) .
G(r,r) = Gl(r,r)- Gt(r,r) G9(r,r)+
of the integral in (12) are easily determined, the third term,
that is the Sommerfeld correction term G s ( r , r ) given by ( 8 )
has t o b e numerically integrated. The major problem resides in
the evaluation of the semi-infinite complex, Sommerfeld integrals
( 3 1 ) and ( 3 2 ) in Appendix B.
4.2 Soniinerfeld Integrals
The computation of the Sommerfeld integrals requires an ac-
curate and efficient technique valid for a wide variation in the
pa.ra.meters including frequency, distance between conductor seg-
ments and observation points, depths of the segments and ob-
servation points, and the characteristics of the ground.
For this purpose, the technique of numerical integration on a
modified path in the complex plane is chosen. This technique
(10) is accurat,e for a wide range of parameters, a.s required in this
study. T h e deta.ils of t,his numerical procedure can be found i n
Lytle[ll] and elsewhere. T h e computation model used here is
an enhanced version of the model described by Grcev[R] which
can examine interconnected grounding conductors.
5 Electric Field Near Electrodes
Once the current distribution given by (9) has been computed
the electric field E(r) can be calculated a t any point r in soil b y
summing the contributions due to the current,s in each segment.
T h a t is,
where g ( r ,r) is the conducting half-space Greens function
(Miller[141).
At points very close to the surface of an electrode, an ap-
proximate expression is used (Adams[2]) to avoid numerical
insta.bility. That. is,
Here El,, denotes the normal component of the direct electric
(12)
field and p denotes the radial distance from the segments axis.
5.1 Leakage Current Distribution
T h e leakage current density can be evaluated as the product, of
the normal component of the electric field on the surface of a
ground conductor and the conductance of the soil (Grcev[9]):
Je(r) = E p ( r ). m (16)
where J P and E , are the leakage current density and the normal
component of the electric field, respectively, a t the surface of a
ground conductor.
 1777
5.2 Impedance to Ground 40 T I 1 1 I 1 1 1 1 1 1 , I

T h e application of the method of moments in antenna theory

leads directly to the value of the impedance of feed points. In
power system grounding however, the procedure is different and 30
more involved because of the method of energization. An a.n-
tenna is energized by a generator with very close terminal points
h
while a grounding system is energized by injecting a current be- 01
v
tween a ground conductor point and remote soil. Consequently,
i t is necessary to calculate the voltage between the generator ter-
5
h
20
minals. While this is a simple task when the terminals are close,
a = 0.5 cm
the voltage (and hence, the impedance to ground) for the higher
u I = 0.01 Slm
frequencies is usually dependent on the path of integration of T,/T,= 115 pslps
the electric field. 10
T h e voltage can be obtained by the integration of the electric
/,,Ye : 3 2 0 . 014 9 PS
field from the feed point on the electrode to a remote point. ht -0.012 0.024
F. -40.96 20.40 10.24 llhz
T h e difficulty with using the foregoing as a definition of voltage
4 I 4I
arises because its value for time-varying fields depends on the 0 I 1 1 1 1 I

path of integration. Therefore, a t the higher frequencies range,
it is extremely important to define the test circuit used for the
voltage measurement.
6 Time-Domain Solutions
Once the transfer function M ; ( g w ) have been determined for
each calculated quantity, for example the electric field or current
at specified points, the time-domain solutions can be obtained
by direct application of (I). For example, in the case of the
impedance, the time-domain response of the voltage a t the feed
point is evaluated using (1) and the transient impedance follows
using
The Fourier transform of the excitation current z ( t ) can be
obtained analytically for simple cases, but in general numerical
integration is required.
The calculation of the inverse Fourier transform is carried out
by a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm (Brigham[4]) which is
well-suited for the evaluation of the time-domain responses. This
technique however is approximate because it involves bandlim-
iting (windowing) of functions and requires regular sampling of
continuous functions which are generally of rather long dura-
tions and infinite spectrums. It is thus necessary t o determine
the proper density of sampling and the Nyquist (maximum) fre-
quency in all calculations of a transfer function W ( j w ) . T h e
number of samples is minimized by application of an adaptive
interpolation algorithm (Grcev[S]).
6.1 Nyquist Frequency
T h e Nyquist frequency and the number of samples is determined
by the accuracy required for the representation of the tiine-
domain response at early times of the current excitation (for
example during the calculation of responses t o current waves
with steep fronts). The Nyquist frequency range is given by
(Brigham[4])
1
Fm =
where At denotes the earliest time for which accurate informa-
tion on a response is desirable (assuming that the excitation
current is also known at that time).
If the time step At is specified in advance, the Nyquist fre-
quency (18) yields the maximum frequency which has to be ac-
counted for in the frequency spectrum.
0.05 0.01 0. I t@s)
Figure 5: Influence of F, o n Transient Impedance Conipii-
tat ions.
This leads to a significant.ly higher frequency than t,lia.t.ba.sed
on the usual approach. T h e maximum frequency F,, is usn-
ally determined as the frequency above which the amplitudes
in the recorded spectrum are negligible (Mazzettie[l2]). For
instance, the maximum frequency F , may be specified by the
requirement that 99% of a wave energy lies in the frequency
band below F,. This is clearly illustrated in Figure 5. which
shows a lossless cylindrical conductor in an unbounded conduct-
ing medium. T h e conductor is energized by the injection of
a double-exponentialcurrent wave (Grcev[9], Mazzettie[121,
Meliopoulos[l3]). T h e value of Fm which captures 99%#of the
energy of I ( J w )is GOO KHz a.nd 7 MHz for V ( J W(Grcev[8]).
)
However, even F, = 10 MHz (curve 1) does not allow the evalu-
ation of the maximum of the impulse impedmce. This value or-
curs at At % 0.04ps and therefore F, % 25MHz. Here F,, = 20
MHz (curve 2) leads to a.pproxima.te results for early times while
F , = 40 M H z (curve 3 ) yields the most accurate results for early
times. All curves give accurate results for t > 0 . 0 3 ~ s .
7 Computer Model
The flowchart for the computer model is shown in Figure 6.
Essentially, the transfer function is approximated by frequency
sampling in a loop around Modules 1, 2 and 3. The frequency
and then the time-domain electromagnetic field generated by
single or multiple injections of current impulses into the ground-
ing network is computed in Module 4. Further details are now
given.
7.1 Structure of the Computer Model
To approxima.te the tra.nsfer function, the frequency-domain re-
sponse of the network to single frequency, time-harmonic input
current,s is found. T h e spacing A bet,ween t,hese sa.mpling frr-
quencies is implicitly defined by Nyquist relation F, = &
where F , is the frequency bound discussed in Section 6.1. For
each single sa.mpling frequency, the loop computa.tions are as
follows.
Module 1 . Preliminaries. T h e Soinmerfeld integrals a.nd t,he
correction terms given in Appendix B are computed for
1778
Som..rt.ld Intaqrals
E".l".tion
El.6tromaqn.tIc
Of
Field
!I
I
1
a t Prmscribed
0bs.rv.tIon Points
Figure 6: Computation Flowchart.
points on a grid in the Cartesian coordinates system. All
points of interest in the problem are within the confines
of the grid. The computed values are stored for later use.
The mesh size of the grid is chosen sufficiently small, so
that further values of computed quantities can be found by
interpolation between the grid points.
Module 2. Current Dzstrzbutzon. First the values of correction
terms are interpolated in order to evaluate the integrals in
(12). This yields the generalized impedances from which
the current distribution for the single-frequency input is
determined by (11).
Module 3. Electroaagnetzc Fzeld. The electromagnetic field
generated by the single input frequency is computed a t
points (field profiles) selected by the user and also along an
appropriate path when the grounding system impedance is
requested.
Repetition of the loop across the various frequencies completes
the computation, or rather more precisely, the sampling of the
transfer function.
Finally in Module 4, the frequency domain representation of
the computed electromagnetic field responses are then converted
to the time-domain by application of the Fast Fourier Transform
to each component of interest.
7.2 Computation Time
T h e ma.jor disadvantage of this computer model lies in the sig-
nificant computation time required to numerically evaluate the
va.rious integrals involved and t o solve the simultaneous 1inea.r
equations (11) for the current distribution. For insta.nce, this
evalua.tion for a grounding grid broken down into N z 300 seg-
inent,s requires over 30 hours of CPU on a.n a.rra.y processor at,-
tached to the Q-Bus of a VAX (with a MAP-4000 army proces-
sor running a t 40 MFLOPS peak) for a time-doma.in solution
corresponding to a 30 MHz frequency spectrum.
A major reduction of this computation time can be achieved
by applying whenever possible, for instance a t low frequency and
for short distances between a segment and observation points.
formal solutions of the Sommerfeld integrals (Dawalibi[G,7]).
Furthermore, code optimization and use of asympt,ot,icexpan-
sions valid for particu1a.r combinations of media characteristics
can be also employed to reduce computation t,imes (Wait[26]).
This work is presently in progress and significant achievements
(i.e., reductions of comput,er time by a factor of 5 to 10) will be
report,ed in fut,ure publications.
8 Numerical Results
Detailed numerical analysis for a variety of practical ground-
ing systems will be the subject of a forthcoming paper. Note
that various numerical results for simple electrodes (in both the
frequency and time domains) can be found in the previous pub-
lications by the first author (Grcev[S,S]).
9 Conclusions
The development and application of a. computer model for a.n-
alyzing the transient performance of grounding systems ba.sed
on electromagnetic field theory has been described. T h e use
of a combination of numerical int,egra.tion techniques, met,hod
of moments, adaptive interpolation and Fast Fourier Tra.nsforln
constitutes the basis for the computation of various physical
quantities such as the electric fields in the ground, longitud-
nal and leakage currents in the ground conductors and ground
impedances. It is seen that t,he analysis of conductforsenergized
by currents waves can require computations a t frequencies higher
than the significant frequencies in the spectrum of the excitat,ion
signal while simpler models may fail to predict accurately the
transient performance.
T h e main limitation of t,his computer model is attributed to
the computer time required for the analysis of large or complex
grounding syst,ems. However, research work by t,he authors is
presently conducted in order t o reduce computer time sufficiently
to enable its use on general purpose computers.
Acknowledgments
T h e research work and the development of the extended coin-
puter model was supported by Safe Engineering Services RL tech-
nologies Itd (SES). The authors would like t,o t,hank Dr. Alan
Selby of SES for his constructive comments a.nd hlr. Walt,rr
Tavcar of SES for his assista.nce in t,he final software develop-
ment, and in the prepara.t,ion of the manuscript. Finally, t.he
first author would like t o thank Professor Z. Ha.2nada.r of the
Universit,y of Zagreb, Yugoshvia, for his continuous support.
 1779
Appendix A in terms of the fields of a vertical and a horizontal current ele-
ment. These are shown in Figure 3, along the z-axis and x-axis,
The scattered electric field E(r) a t a point r produced by a
respectively. T h e components of the electric field are as follows:
current t.I(r)and a charge ue(r)can be expressed in terms of
the magnetic vector potential A(r) and electric scalar potential
4(r) as follows:
E(r)= -jwA(r) - Vd(r) (19)
The magnetic vector potential A(r) and the electric scalar
potential 4(r) are given by the retarded potential int,egrals

(29)

A formula for the electric field, obtained by the substitution (30)

of (20) and (21) into (19) is

E(r) = -e lt.I(r)g,(r,r)df? (31)

Yet mother form representation of the sca.ttered electric field

follows from the continuity equation Here p denotes the dipole strength. The superscripts 5 and H
respectively indicate the vertical and horizontal components.
1
ue(r) = --V . tI(r) (23) As in Section 3.1, g1 denotes the unbounded conducting
JW medium Greens function, while its image function is here dp-
Here substitution of (23) into (22) yields noted by g,. Finally, Ull and VI1 are given by Sommerfeld inte-
grals.
1
E(r) = - tI(r)gI(r,r)
df? (24)
(32)
4xjw5,

In some cases changing the order of integration and differentia-

tion in (24) is advantageous. This is possible when r # r and
r E f? as this condition implies that the Greens function g1 (r,r)
and all its partial derivatives are finite and continuous.
When the order of integration and differentiation can be
changed, the vector algebra identity T h e field components in (31) can be used to construct
Gs(r, r) in (8). T h e vector components for horizontally and
vv ( p c )

= ( 0 p ) v . c + pvv . c + vp x vxc vertically oriented current elements, used in (8), can b e easily
+(c.V)vp+(va.v)c (25) shown from (27) to(31) t o be the following.

and (24) imply

1 (34)
Es(r) = -/It . I(r) . V] [Vgl(r,r)
4*.iwC, e
(35)
de
- y?tI(r)gI(r,r)] (26)

Equations (22) and (23) are used in (3). Equation ( 2 6 ) is used

in (4).

Appendix B
Sommerfelds solution for the electromagnetic fields due t o an
infinitesimal current element radiating in the presence of a con- where CI = &-
ducting half-space is based on Maxwells equations subject t o 1

boundary conditions on the tangential components a t the half-

space interface. The exact solution is expressed in terms of semi- References
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Dr. Leonid Grcev (M84) was born in Skopje, Yugoslavia on
April 28, 1951. He received in electrical engineering t,he B. Sc.
degree from the University of Skopje, and the M. Sc. and D. Sc.
degrees from t,he University of Za.greb, Yugoslavia., in 1978, 1982
a.nd 1988, respectively.
From 1978 to 1988. he held a position with the Electric I w
dust,ry of Macedonia, Skopje working in the Telecommunications
and Information Systems Department. In 1988, he joined t.he
Faculty of Electrical Engineering a t the Universit.y of Skopje,
a.nd is now an Assisbnt Professor of Electrical Engineering. His
present research interests are in computational electroma.gnetics
applied to grounding and interference.
Leonid Grcev is a member of IEEE PE, AP and EMC societ.iw
He is also a member of the Applied Computational Elect.romag-
netics Society.
Dr. Farid Dawalibi (M72 SM82) was born in Novemher
1947. He received a Bachelor of Engineering degree from St.
Josephs University, a.ffiliated with the University of Lyon, ant1
the M. Sc. A . and Ph. D. degrees from Ecole Polytechnique of
the University of Montreal. From 1971 to 19i6, he worked as a
consulting engineer with the Shawinigan Engineering C,ompaug,
in Montreal. He worked on numerous projects involving power
system analysis and design, railway electrification studies and
specialized computer-software code development. In 1976, he
joined Montel-Sprecher &L Schuh, a manufacturer of high volt.age
equipment in Montreal, as Manager of Technical Services and
was involved in power system design, equipment select,ion and
testing for systems ranging from a. few to several hundred kV.
In 1979. he founded Safe Engineering Services & Technologies,
a company which specializes in soil effects on power networks.
Since that time he has been responsible for the engineering ac-
tivities of t,he company including the development, of software
code rela.ted t,o power syst,ems applications.
He is the a.ut,hor of more tha.n sixty papers on power systems
grounding and safety, soil resistivity, electroma,gnetic interfer-
ence. He has written several resea.rch reports for CEA and EPRI.
Dr. Dawalibi is a corresponding member of va.rious IEEE
Committee Working Groups, and a senior member of the IEEE
Power Engineering Society a.nd the Canadian Society for Elec-
trical Engineering. He is a regist,ered Engineer in the Province
of Quebec.

DISCUSSION
ABDUL M. MOUSA (British Columbia Hydro, Vancouver,
B. C., Canada): I wish to congratulate Messrs. Grcev
and Dawalibi for this masterpiece of analytical work.
I have a comment and a question regarding the scope of
applicability of the paper. The literature cited in
the INTRODUCTION on antennas and propagation,
geophysical prospecting and electromagnetic
compatibility, deals with current signals which have
high frequency but small amplitudes. In power systems,
on the other hand, the high frequency ground currents
(arising from disturbances, e.g. lightning) also have
high amplitudes which can exceed 100 kA. As a result,
breakdown occurs in the soil and this affects the
behaviour of the electrode. This is definitely the
case with power line towers where grounds are mostly of
the concentrated type. In case of substations, the
effect of soil ionization can probably be neglected
because the length of the buried conductor is long and
hence the current densities are relatively low. Soil
ionization was taken into consideration in the work
reported in Ref. [12] and [25] o f the paper and in
Ref. [27]-[30] below. According to Section 2 of this
paper, the ground electrodes are assumed to exhibit
linear characteristics, i.e. soil ionization is not
considered. In view of the above, is it fair to state
that the method given in this paper can be applied to
substations but not to power lines? If s o , do the
authors plan to extend their method to include soil
ionization effects?
REFERENCES
[27] Bellaschi, P.L., Armington, R.E. and Snowden, A.E.
(1942). "Impulse and 60-Cycle Characteristics of
1781
Driven Grounds - 11", AIEE Trans., Vol. 61,
pp. 349-363 and 446-448.
[28] Eriksson, A . J .(May 1981). "Transient Impedance
of Earthing Systems", Part I1 of CIGRE Working
Group Paper No. 33.81 (SC) 03.2, 14 pp., presented
at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
291 Kosztaluk, R., Loboda, M., and Mukhedkar, D.
(1981). "Experimental Study of Transient Ground
Impedances", IEEE Trans., Vol. PAS-100, NO. 11,
pp. 4653-4660.
301 Liew, A.C. and Darveniza, M. (1974). "Dynamic
Model of Impulse Characteristics of Concentrated
Earths", Proceedings IEE, Vol. 121, No. 2 ,
pp. 123-135.
Manuscript received March 1, 1990.
L.GRCEV and F.DAWALIBI: The authors thank Mr.Abdul M.Mousa
for his kind words. The authors agree that when high currents are
discharged through small electrodes, the soil ionization problem becomes
important. The soil characteristicswill then vary. This should be taken
into account in any analytical model aimed at analyzing ground electrode
performance.
One of our research goals is to determine the exact current distribution in
metallic structures above or below the ground in the case of constant soil
characteristics.From such work it will be feasible to determine when the
soil ionization threshold is met or exceeded. When the latter occurs it is
possible to develop an iterative algorithm to model and account for
changing soil characteristics.This approach could be similar to some of
those already appearing in the references cited in the paper and by Mr.
Mousa. The present paper is a necessary step in that direction. Mr.
Mousa's remarks are an indication of further work that needs to be done.
Manuscript received March 28, 1990.