Objectives:

1. Measuring earth resistance.

2. Understanding installation of earth for building using fall of
potential method.
3. To know different elements that affect earth resistance like: soil
resistively, earthing rod cross sectional area and conductor
material.

Equipment:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Digital earth resistance tester

Earthing rods
Auxiliary earth associated with tester
Cables associated with tester

Theoretical background:
Ground, in electricity, connection in an electrical circuit that leads to
the earth or to a large conducting object (such as the metal frame of an
airplane) that is at zero potential with respect to the rest of the circuit.
In every type of electrical system or device, accessible metal parts,
such as frames, cases, and switches, are usually maintained at ground
potential. If this precaution is not observed, a failure of insulation or some
other accident may put part of the system at a potential different from that
of the ground, creating a shock hazard.
Measuring earth resistance is an important aspect in electrical
installations. We will use fall of potential method to measure it. By
passing current I through earthing plate X and electrode Z which is far
away from X, and then inserting another electrode Y between X and Z we
are able to find earth resistance using the relation:
RX

Potential difference between X and Y

Current I

This is done easily by using DEIT for our measurements.

Procedure:
1. For each electrode we fitted the auxiliary rods to the ground to
be measured as figure below.
2. Using suitable-length cables we connected the rods X, Y and Z
to their corresponding terminals of the tester
3. We select the range of ohms and turn the power on of the tester.
4. for each distance between X and Y we pushed the control button
to read the resistance and turn the tester OFF
5. As shown in the following table resistance is taken in straightline direction.
6. We changed the direction of our measurements to see the effect
of different soil locations and filled second row in the table.
7. We joined the two earthing electrodes and repeated the above
steps and filled third row.

Earthing
plate

Distance of
Y from X
(m)

0.5

1.5

10

12

X1

RX()

85

120

125

140

145

150

146

170

900

X2

RX()

80

150

165

163

156

180

185

176

880

X1/X2

RX ()

60

118

109

102

153

159

162

700

115

Result and discussion:

Q 1&2)
-theoretical values

- experimental values

as we see from the graph of the experimental values and compared to the
graph of measured values we find that the two graphs are the same but the
experimental didnt start from the zero because there is no zero distance
and we find that the small diameter electrode gave a high resistance and
using the big electrode diameter in parallel with a small diameter
electrode reduce the resistance of the earth effectively.
In the middle of the curve we find the true value of the earth resistance
and it's increased and decreased at the start or at the end.
Q3)
We can reduce the earth resistance by changing the diameter of the
electrodes or by connecting a new electrode in parallel.

Q4)
Yea it was a good material, but it has a high resistance so we have to add
a chemical materials and conductive material to be more suitable to
measuring the earth resistance because this materials decrease the earth
resistance
Q5)
The maximum value of the earth resistance in Jordan about 5 ohm's it
mustnt be more than this value, but it will change from region to other
due to the temperature and moisture

Conclusion:
the most important thing for knowing the earth resistance and find
it is to protect the users when they using the electrical machines
the earth resistance must be as small as it can because the currents
move across the low resistance
we have to take in the account the variables that affect in the earth
resistance to measure the accurate value of the resistance

UNIVERSITY OF JORDAN
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
MEASUREMENTS and CONTROL LAB. 0908448
EXPERIMENT N0. 3

Group Names:
1. Ahmad Al-Mashayekh.(0052904).
2. Anas Al-Hamad.(
).
3. Ramzi Al-Assaf. (
).
4. Ahmad Abu-Hasham. (
).
Section: (2-5)/(SUN).
Date: 25/10/2009.