Thin Conductor Modelling Combined with a Hybrid Numerical Method to Evaluate the Transferred Potential from Isolated Grounding System

Giovanni Aiello, Salvatore Alfonzetti, Santi Agatino Rizzo and Nunzio Salerno
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Giovanni Aiello: Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, 95125 Catania, Italy
Salvatore Alfonzetti: Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, 95125 Catania, Italy
Santi Agatino Rizzo: Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, 95125 Catania, Italy
Nunzio Salerno: Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, 95125 Catania, Italy

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-11

Abstract: Grounding systems are essential parts of substations and power generation stations. The evaluation of transferred potentials from an active grounding system to other passive ones or to any near conductors is an important aspect to be considered, because transferred potentials may cause serious and fatal events. Moreover, it is an intrinsic issue of the Smart Grid where the ground systems of the power and ICT systems could be close to each other. Therefore, the estimation of the transferred potential is necessary at grounding system design stage for people safety and electric components safeguard. Numerical methods are the best choice to perform a truthful estimation, especially when large and complex grounding systems have to be designed. However, this task is complicated by the “unbounded” nature of the electromagnetic field and by the presence of components of extremely different size in the analysis domain. In this paper, an efficient hybrid finite element method is applied for the accurate and fast computation of transferred earth potentials from grounding systems. Moreover, the small dimensions of the components in the analysis domain are taken into account by the use of one-dimensional finite elements inserted in the tetrahedral mesh. It is worth mentioning the additional advantage of obtaining the electric potential on the earth surface without any post-processing operation.

Keywords: boundary element method; earthing system; finite element analysis; grounding system; numerical method; transferred potential (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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