Hindu School of Architecture, Sonepat 1

ELECTRICAL EARTHING

Prof. CRKOLI
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Electrical earthing/ grounding

• What is electrical earthing?
• In electricity supply systems, an earthing system
or grounding system is circuitry which connects parts of
the electric circuit with the ground, thus defining
theelectric potential of the conductors relative to
the Earth's conductive surface
• Earthing is used to protect you from an electric shock. It
does this by providing a path (a protective conductor) for
a fault current to flow to earth. It also causes the
protective device (either a circuit-breaker or fuse) to
switch off the electric current to the circuit that has the
fault.
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• What is the purpose of an electrical ground?

• In electrical engineering, ground or earth is the reference
point in an electrical circuit from which voltages are
measured, a common return path for electric current, or a
direct physical connection to the Earth.
• Why do we need grounding?
• An additional 'grounding wire' can be attached to outlets
and other electrical devices and also securely connected
to the ground at the breaker box. This ground wire is an
additional path for electrical current to return safely to the
ground without danger to anyone in the event of a short
circuit.
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• Why proper earthing is necessary?

• As it's a safety factor, earthing is essential and mandatory.
It's an electrical connection between the exposed metallic
parts of an electrical appliance or installation and the
earth, regarded to have zero potential. dangerous level of
potential or voltage that endangers the user's life
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Applications of earthing
• Protect human against lightning and earth fault
condition
• Protect the premises against lightning and earth fault
condition
• Provide low resistance and safe path for lightning and
fault current
• All metallic enclosure and extraneous conductive parts
are at equipotential
• LV System Earth
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Functions of Earthing
Equipment Earth : Path for fault current, lower touch voltage,
protection against electric shock

Lighting Earth : Low resistance path to diverse the current

under lightning attack.

Telecom Earth : Signal Earth, reduce noise and interference,

stabilize DC supply voltage and prevent electric shock

Computer Earth : reduce interference, maintain supply voltages

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Two classes of protection

Class I protection –
Use of barrier/insulation and connection of protective
conductor to equipment metallic enclosure in order to
protect against electric shock

Class II protection –
Beside of the basic insulation, addition layer of insulation
apply to the enclosure. Therefore no extraneous
conductive part. The additional layer is independent to the
basic insulation so that under failure of basic insulation, it
offers additional protection
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Types of Earthing
• Supply System – Neutral Earth
• System Earth
• Electrical Safety Earth
• Lightning Earth
• Generator Earth
• Protection Earth (i.e. surge arrestor)
• Telecom / Computer Earth
• Shielding Earth
• Integrated Earthing System (Advocated)
• Electrostatic Earth (Clean Room / Hospital)
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Earthing Arrangements
• TN System
• TNS System
• TN C S System
• TN C system
• TT System
• IT System
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TN-S System
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TN-C System
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TN-C-S System
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TT System
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IT System
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Factors affect to the earth impedance

• Soil
• Weather
• Electrode type
• Electrode size
• Near by utilities
• Electrode in parallel
• Distance between electrode
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Soil Resistivity
• The resistivity of earth may vary over extremely wide
limits, depending on the composition of the soil and the
moisture content.

Factors that affect resistivity

• Type of earth (eg, clay, loam, sandstone, granite)
• Stratification; layers of different types of soil (eg, loam
backfill on a clay base)
• Moisture content
• Temperature
• Chemical composition and concentration of dissolved salt
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WENNER method

ρw = 2 π d R S-ES
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SCHLUMBERGER method

ρs = ( π (d2 – A2/4) RS-ES ) /

A
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Types Of Earth Electrodes

• Solid Copper

• Copper clad steel rod ( copper shrunk onto the core)

• Copper Bonded steel core (coper is molecularly bonded

to nickel plated steel rod)
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Earth Resistance Of An Electrode

• soil exhibits a resistance to the flow an electrical current
• not an “ideal” conductor
• resistance (can never be zero) between the earth
electrode and “true Earth”.
• The resistance between the earth electrode and “true
Earth”
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Rods Driven Vertically Into The Ground

Rg = (𝞺/2𝞹L)[ln(8L/d)-1]

where,
ρ - Soil Resistivity in Ωm
L - Buried Length of the electrode in m
d - Diameter of the electrode in m
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Combined Resistance Of n No Of
Electrodes

In which

Where
R=resistance of one rod Ω
S = distance between adjacent rods m
ρ = resistivity of soil Ω-m
λ =is a factor selected from Table 2 or 3 of BS 7430
‘n is the no of electrodes as given in Tables 2 and3
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Resistance Of A Vertical Electrode With

Infill Of Bentonite Or Concrete

Where,
𝞺c – resistivity of the infill material
d – diameter of electrode in m
D – diameter of infill

L – driven length of electrode

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Approximate Resistance for a Strip or a

round conductor

Where ,
L – length of the strip
‘h - the depth buried
w - width of the strip
P and Q are coefficient for strip or round conductor in Table
5
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Questions

?
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Thank You