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PIERS Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010

Resistance to Earth of Grounding Grids in Tow-layer Soil Structure Using FEM and GA
P. Hajebi, A. A. Heidari, and A. Mirzaei Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

Abstract Numerical methods such as nite element method (FEM) are the most accurate
methods for computing of grounding grid resistance. Generally, these methods are complicate and time consuming for designing a grounding system, therefore, in many cases empirical relations are employed. In this paper, many grounding grids in two-layer soil with dierent dimensions and soil parameters are simulated using FEM. The FEM results are used to optimize the expressions for estimating the grounding resistance. The expressions are optimized by introducing an objective function and using genetic algorithm (GA). Simulations show that the proposed expressions give accurate results that match well with those obtained by complete FEM modeling of the grounding grids. 1. INTRODUCTION

Design and implementation of a grounding grid is one of the important problems in the power station and electrical and communication installations. Many dierent numerical and practical methods have been proposed for computing the grounding grid resistance. Numerical methods such as FEM are complicated and time consuming especially in the designing of a grounding grid. Therefore, empirical expressions are employed in many cases. The exact numerical methods can be used for modifying the empirical formulas or suggesting new expressions for calculation of the grounding resistance. Several expressions for vertical electrode grids and horizontal grounding grids buried in uniform soil have been proposed [14]. In [5, 6], grounding resistance in multi-layer soils has been investigated. The introduced expressions in [6] for two layer soil have more accurate results than the uniform soil expressions. However, these expressions can be optimized for better matching with the accurate FEM results. In this paper, the relations for computing the grounding grid resistance in two-layer soils are optimized using FEM results by introducing an objective function and using GA.
2. HORIZONTAL GROUNDING GRIDS

Horizontal grounding grids are usually in square or rectangular shapes as shown in Figure 1. Internal meshes are applied in these grids for decreasing the grounding resistance. In this section, a number of reported expressions for computing grounding resistance of these grids in uniform and two layer soils are expressed.
2.1. Grounding Resistance in Uniform Soils

Various expressions are used in the designing process to determine the resistance to earth of earthing grids. The well-known relation was suggested by Laurent [1] has the following form: R= + 2D L (1)

Figure 1: Various shapes of horizontal grounding grids.

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where is the soil resistivity and L is the total length of grid conductors. D is the diameter of a round plate covering the same area A as the grid. D= 4
1 2

A2

(2)

Another empiric expression was proposed in [5], matching well with the results obtained by exact computer modeling for a wide set of square and rectangular grids: 2400 RGrid = 0.13 log10 N A A A0 (3)

where N is the number of grid meshes and A0 = 1 m2 . This expression was obtained by correcting the expression for a round plate covering area A to be adequate for sparse grids, such as single contour or four-mesh grids.
2.2. Grounding Resistance in Two-layer Soils

Uniform soil structure isnt an appropriate model of the soil structure in many practical implementations. The eects of the bottom layer of a two-layer soil can be taken into account using the following general expression [5]: R(1 , 2 ) = C2/1 R(1 ) (4) where 1 and 2 are respectively the top and bottom soil layer resistivity. R(1 ) designates the resistance to earth of the grid buried in uniform soil with earth resistivity equal to the resistivity of the top soil layer and C2/1 is the correction factor where incorporates the eect of the actual twolayer soil structure. Under assumption that the earthing grid is in the top soil layer, the following empirical expression was suggested for C2/1 [5]: C2/1 = where: x = 0.14 log10 44N x = 0.12 log10 3160N A A0 A A0
1 2

2 1

(5)

h0 h
1 2

for 2 /1 < 1 h h0 log10 1000 A0 A

1 2

(6) for 2 /1 > 1

0.2 log10

where h is the thickness of the top soil layer, A0 = 1 m2 and h0 = 1 m.

3. OPTIMIZATION OF THE EXPRESIONS USING GA

The above expressions give relatively accurate results, but as mentioned in [6], for some situations these results dont match well with those obtained by complete modeling of the grounding grids. In order to obtain more accurate results, we can optimize the coecients in these expressions. Equation (6) can be written in the following general form with variable parameters: x = a1 log10 a2 N x = b1 log10 b2 N A A0 A A0
1 2

h0 h

for 2 /1 < 1 h h0 log10 b4 A0 A

1 2

1 2

(7) for 2 /1 > 1

b3 log10

These parameters (a1 , a2 , b1 , b2 , b3 , b4 ) are in Equation (6) as: a1 = 0.14, a2 = 44, b1 = 0.12, b2 = 3160, b3 = 0.2, b4 = 1000 (P.1)

Our work is to optimize these parameters for increasing the accuracy of the estimated grounding resistance using Equation (7) together with Equations (4) and (5). At rst, many horizontal

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PIERS Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010 Table 1: Objective function values for the parameters (P.1) and (P.2). Fg (Objective Function) 2 > 1 2 < 1 (P.1) 3.3645 0.9405 (P.2) 1.3876 0.7425

Table 2: Comparison of correction factor C2/1 computed using (P.1) and optimized parameters (P.2) for the case 2 < 1 . Grid S1 R1 R4 S16 S16 S16 S16 S64 S64 S64 A (m2 ) 10 10 10 20 10 20 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 50 50 50 50 50 50 h (m) 5 5 5 25 12.5 6.25 3.125 25 12.5 6.25 2 /1 1/3 1/3 1/5 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3 1/3 RFEM () 4.02 2.7 1.94 1.59 1.37 1.09 0.83 0.66 0.52 0.39 CFEM 0.850 0.701 0.701 0.920 0.797 0.658 0.548 0.800 0.655 0.491 C2/1 (P.1)/CFEM (%) 97 115 91 87 91 101 110 87 96 118 C2/1 (P.2)/CFEM (%) 113 132 100 99 97 99 101 89 91 103

grounding grids with various parameters in two-layer soil structure are considered and their accurate resistances are obtained using the FEM software. FEM is a numerical method that has more accurate results than the others in the grounding grid computations [68]. These FEM results are used in an optimization process using GA and the following objective function:
N

Fg =
i=1

|CFEM CC | CFEM

(8)

where N is the number of grounding grids simulated using FEM , CFEM is the accurate correction factor which is computed based on FEM results and CC is the calculated correction factor using Equation (7) with substituting in Equation (5). By decreasing Fg , Equation (7) convergences to exact resistance values. Equation (7) has two part for 1 < 2 and 1 > 2 , then optimization is performed in each part separately. To minimize Fg , we use genetic algorithm, in which initial population is 40, probability of crossover is 0.6 and probability of mutation is 0.05.
4. SIMULATION RESULTES

Many horizontal grounding grids with various types (dimensions and number of meshes as shown in Figure 1) are considered and after optimization, the following results are obtained: a1 = 0.25148, a2 = 3.335, b1 = 0.12369, b2 = 9975.5, b3 = 0.32395, b4 = 1937.2 (P.2)

The objective function value for the both initial parameters (P.1) and optimized parameters (P.2) are compared in Table 1. This table shows that the objective function is reduced for optimized parameters signicantly. Tables 2 and 3 show detailed results for simulated grids for both cases 2 < 1 and 2 > 1 , respectively. For all cases, the grids buried in depth 0.7 m and 1 = 100 m. In these tables, RFEM is the accurate grid resistance obtained using FEM and CFEM is the exact correction factor (C2/1 in Equation (4)) which is computed from FEM results. Furthermore, the correction factors are computed using Equation (7) with the parameters (P.1) and (P.2) and are shown in Tables 2 and 3 as the percentage of CFEM . As it can be observed, the correction factors C2/1 computed using optimized parameters (P.2) are more accurate than the ones computed using (P.1), especially for the case 2 > 1 and h > 10 m.

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Table 3: Comparison of correction factor C2/1 computed using (P.1) and optimized parameters (P.2) for the case 2 > 1 . Grid S1 R1 R4 S16 S16 S16 S16 S64 S64 S64 A (m3 ) 1010 10 20 10 20 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 50 50 50 50 50 50 h (m) 5 5 5 25 12.5 6.25 3.125 25 12.5 6.25 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 RFEM () 8.44 6.64 6.29 2.69 3.37 4.4 5.65 1.67 2.19 2.82 CFEM 1.601 1.722 1.722 1.075 1.297 1.781 2.510 1.290 1.490 2.950 C2/1 (P.1)/CFEM (%) 94.9 94 106 155 152 132 111 182 181 105 C2/1 (P.2)/CFEM (%) 73 74 84 87 100 101 100 112 128 85

5. CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, the grounding resistance expressions for two-layer soil structure were optimized. Different types of grounding grids in two-layer soil were considered and their resistances were computed using nite element method. Using the FEM results and the introduced objective function, the expressions were optimized using genetic algorithm. The simulation results show that the optimized relations are more accurate than the primary relations.
REFERENCES

1. Vijayaraghavan, G., M. Brown, and M. Barnes, Practical Grounding Bonding, Shielding and Surge Protection, ELSEVIER, 2004. 2. Laurent, P. G., Guide sur le calcul l xcution et la mesure des prises de terre, Rev. Gen. e e Electr., Vol. 53, 455467, 563572, 1972. 3. IEEE Guide for Safety in AC Substation Grounding, 2000. 4. IEEE Guide for Measuring Earth Resistivity, Ground Impedance, and Earth Surface Potentials of Ground System, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1983. 5. Nahman, J. and V. Djordjevic, Resistance to earth of substation earth electrodes in uniform and two layer-soils, Electrical Engineering, Vol. 80, No. 5, 337342, Springer, 1997. 6. Nahmanm, J. and I. Paunovic, Resistance to earth of earthing grids buried in multi-layer soil, Electrical Engineering, Vol. 88, No. 4, 281287, Springer, 2006. 7. Qi, L., X. Cui, Z. Zhao, and H. Li, Grounding performance analysis of the substation grounding grids by nite element method systems by vector nite-element analysis multilayer soil, IEEE Trans. Magn., Vol. 43, No. 4, 262262, 2007. 8. Silva, V. C., J. R. Cardoso, S. I. Nabeta, M. F. Palin, and F. H. Pereira, Determination of frequency-dependent characteristics of substation grounding systems by vector nite-element analysis, IEEE Trans. Magn., Vol. 43, No. 4, 18251828, 2007.