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Abstract—Grounding basic function as the earth termination Then, the influence of the fast front current pulses can be ana-
of the lightning protection systems is to effectively disperse the lyzed in time domain [3].
lightning current to earth without causing any danger to people
or damage to installations. However, due to the inductive phe- II. FREQUENCY DEPENDENT INDUCTIVE BEHAVIOR
nomena, the grounding performance might be much worse at
high frequencies in comparison to low frequencies, which might The basic quantity that characterizes the low frequency per-
deteriorate the efficiency of the protection during fast front formance is the grounding resistance defined as:
lightning current pulses. This paper provides simple empirical R =V I (1)
formula for a first approximation of the impulse efficiency of
some common arrangements of vertical and horizontal ground where I is the current injected at a point in the grounding sys-
electrodes for typical lightning current waveforms. The effects of tem and V is the voltage between such point and the remote
the soil ionization are disregarded; therefore, the new formula neutral ground (both are RMS values). For typical grounding
leads to a conservative estimate of the upper bound of the im- systems, V is practically equal to the electric potential with a
pulse impedance.
reference point at the remote neutral ground.
This concept is extended to frequency domain by a com-
I. INTRODUCTION
plex harmonic impedance [3]:
The grounding dynamic behavior during lightning stroke is Z ( j ω) = V ( j ω) I ( j ω) (2)
complex and generally depends on the ground electrodes’ ge-
Here complex quantities V ( jω) and I ( jω) are phasors of the
ometry, the soil’s electrical properties, and the lightning cur-
rent waveform properties. Related to the latter, the main influ- harmonic electric potential at the feed point in reference to the
ence has: the current intensity and the current pulse front time. remote neutral ground and the injected current, respectively, in
In case of high lightning currents the electric field at the a frequency range from 0 Hz up to the highest frequency of
ground electrodes might become larger than the electric interest in the transient studies. It is worth noting that Z ( jω)
strength of the soil, resulting in breakdown and sparks dis- (2) reduces to R (1) at dc.
charge. This phenomenon improves the grounding system
performance so its ignoring always gives conservative results.
On the other hand, due to the frequency dependent inductive
phenomena, the grounding performance might be much worse
during fast front lightning current pulses, which can deterio-
rate the efficiency of the protection.
The previous analysis was often based on the quasi-static
approximation, which constrains the analysis to slow front
pulses [1]. In addition, the most of the previous approaches
use unrealistic lightning current waveforms approximated by
cosine [1] or exponential [2] functions that are characterized
by a convex wave front with a maximum current derivative at
t = 0. Fig. 1. Typical inductive or capacitive behavior of the grounding harmonic
impedance in the high frequency range.
This paper improves the analysis in the both mentioned as-
pects. Firstly, it applies the full-wave analysis method appli- Figure 1 presents typical frequency dependence of the
cable for both slow and very fast front lightning current pulses
grounding harmonic impedance Z ( jω) (2). Two frequency
based on the rigorous electromagnetic field theory approach
[3]. Secondly, realistic lightning current pulse waveforms are ranges may be distinguished: the low frequency (LF) range,
used, which reproduce the observed concave rising portion of where the impedance is frequency independent and practically
typical recorded lightning current pulses [4]. equal to the dc resistance, Z ( j ω) = R , and the high frequency
The analysis of the inductive related dynamic behavior may (HF) range, where the impedance is frequency dependent.
be carried out in two steps. First, the frequency dependent Speaking in circuit terms, the HF grounding behavior may be
inductive behavior can be analyzed in frequency domain. categorized as inductive when Z (ω) / R > 1 , capacitive when
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326
(a)
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327
tient of the peak values of v(t) and i(t): For the subsequent stroke current injected in the same ver-
Z = Vmax I max . (5) tical electrode the situation is different, Fig. 4b. The subse-
Another common parameter is the impulse coefficient A de- quent stroke current pulse has much steeper front than the first
fined as: stroke. Consequently, it has significant frequency content
A= Z R. (6) above 100 kHz and therefore the response is influenced by the
inductive part of the Z(jω). The “filter” amplifies the HF com-
Figure 4a shows the case of the first stroke. The first stroke
ponents of the pulse, which results in a large peak Vm of the
current pulse i(t) does not have significant frequency content
transient potential v(t) during the front of the current i(t) (Fig.
above FC ≈ 100 kHz . Consequently, the response, that is, the
4b). Typically for inductive behavior, the potential pulse pre-
potential pulse waveform v(t) is substantially determined by cedes the current pulse. This causes larger value of the im-
the LF part of Z ( jω ) = R . Potential pulse v(t) waveform is pulse impedance, Z = 15.7 Ω, than the low frequency resis-
not significantly modified in comparison to the current pulse tance, R = 10.3 Ω, and the impulse coefficient of about A =
i(t) waveform and their maximums occur at the same time 1.5. The transient impedance z(t), similarly to the case of the
(Fig. 4a). Although the transient impedance z(t) goes very fast first stroke (Fig. 4a), rises very rapidly to a high value (of
to some high value (larger than 50 Ω) it quickly settles to the about 47 Ω), but also quickly (in about 1 μs) settles to values
low frequency resistance value (R = 10.3 Ω) during the current near the low frequency value (R = 10.3 Ω).
rise.
V. IMPULSE IMPEDANCE AND EFFECTIVE LENGTH
Figure 5 shows the simulation results of the ground resis-
tance R and the impulse impedance Z of the vertical ground
electrode with lengths in a range from 3-m to 30-m in earth
with resistivity: 10-Ωm, 100-Ωm and 1000-Ωm and for light-
ning current waveforms related to the first and the subsequent
strokes.
(a)
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328
6. Different cases are illustrated for earth resistance values of ground electrode arrangements illustrated in the first column
10, 100 and 1000-Ωm and for the first and subsequent stroke of the Table I indicate very similar linear functions for the
current pulses. Impulse performance is worse for longer elec- impulse coefficient as in Fig. 6, only the values of both α and
trodes in better conductive earth, which characteristic fre- β in (7)–(8) are reduced by extents given in the Table I.
quency FC is smaller, and for faster varying pulses, such as
subsequent strokes, which have higher frequency content. TABLE I
(Please note in Fig 6 that A = 1 for ρ = 1000 Ωm and first REDUCTION FACTOR OF THE IMPULSE COEFFICIENT FOR MULTIPLE VERTICAL
GROUND ELECTRODE ARRANGEMENTS [9]
stroke.) Horizontal electrodes are slightly less effective at
power frequency in comparison to vertical ones, but have bet- Ground Electrode Reduction factor
ter impulse efficiency; however, both exhibit very similar be- Arrangement for both α and β
havior. Taking into account necessary simplifications, results
in Fig. 6 for the impulse coefficient of a vertical ground elec-
A
1.00
trode can be used also for a conservative estimate of the im-
pulse coefficient of horizontal electrodes.
A
0.90
A
A
0.80
A
A 1.00
A A 0.90
Fig. 6. Impulse coefficients of a single vertical ground electrode [9] A
0.80
A
Dependence of the impulse coefficient A on the electrode
A A
length is nearly linear and may be approximated with a line for
lengths equal and larger than the effective length [9]
VIII. REFERENCES
A = 1 (A ≤ A eff ); A = αA + β, (A ≥ A eff ) (7)
[1] B. R. Gupta, B. Thapar, “Impulse impedance of grounding systems”,
Consequently the effective length Ae may be determined for 1978 IEEE PES Summer Meeting, Paper A 78 563-9.
[2] Jinliang He, Yanqing Gao, Rong Zeng, Jun Zou, Xidong Liang, Bo
A =1 : Zhang, Jaebok Lee, Sughun Chang, “Effective length of counterpoise
A eff = (1 − β) α (8) wire under lightning current”, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 20, pp.
1585-1591, April 2005.
All dependences of the impulse coefficient A for the cases [3] L. Grcev, F. Dawalibi, “An electromagnetic model for transients in
illustrated in Fig. 6 may be approximated with three lines (7). grounding systems,” IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 5, pp. 1773-
1781, Oct. 1990.
The coefficients α and β can be approximated by the follow- [4] F. Heidler, “Analytische Blitzstromfunktion zur LEMP- Berechnung,” in
ing formulas for other values of the earth resistivity ρ and Proc. 18th Int. Conf. Lightning Protection, Munich, 1985, pp. 63–66.
zero-to-peak time of the lightning current pulse T1 in μs [9]: [5] L. Grcev, “Improved earthing system design practices for reduction of
transient voltages,” in Proc. 1998 CIGRÉ Session, pp. 1-6
α = 0.025 + e ( 1 ) ; β = 0.17 + e ( 1 )
0.257 0.555
−0.82 ρ⋅T −0.22 ρ⋅T [6] L. Grcev, "Improved design of transmission line grounding arrange-
(9)
ments for better protection against effects of lightning," in Proc. Int.
All results are for 0.7 cm electrode radius and 1 m depth of Symp. on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Roma, Italy, 1998, pp. 100-
burial of the horizontal electrode, but since the results does not 103.
[7] K. Berger, R. B. Anderson, and H. Kroninger, “Parameters of lightning
significantly depend on these parameters, formulas (7)–(9) can flashes,” Electra, No. 41, pp. 23-37, 1975.
be used for a first approximation of other similar practically [8] F. Rachidi, W. Janischewskyj, A. M. Hussein, C. A. Nucci, S. Guerrieri,
important cases. B. Kordi, J-S Chang, “Current and electromagnetic field associated with
lightning–return strokes to tall towers”, IEEE Trans. on Electromagnetic
Compatibility, Vol. 43, pp. 356-367, 2001.
VII. IMPULSE EFFICIENCY OF SOME COMMON GROUND [9] L. Grcev, “Impulse efficiency of ground electrodes”, IEEE Trans. Power
ELECTRODE ARRANGEMENTS Delivery, submitted.
Multiple ground electrode arrangements improve the low-
frequency ground resistance, but they also improve the im-
pulse efficiency. The simulation results for several common
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