IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 48, NO.

2, FEBRUARY 2012

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Transient Calculation of Electromagnetic Field for Grounding System Based on Consideration of Displacement Current
Mladen Trlep, Marko Jesenik, and Anton Hamler
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Maribor 2000, Slovenia
This paper shows the use of FEM for a second order time dependent electromagnetic eld problem, around grounding systems (GS). Twenty-node isoparametric quadratic 3D nite element, three-node quadratic 1D nite element and a spatial transformation of the innite space into the nite space are all applied to achieve better accuracy. Time integration is conducted with the Newmark algorithm. The applied program solution is suitable for any GS and isotropic/anisotropic soil properties as well as time-varying fault current. Index TermsElectromagnetic modeling, electromagnetic transient, nite element methods, grounding, numerical simulation.

I. INTRODUCTION HE PRIMARY goal of GS is to ensure the safety of personnel and prevent damage of installations. Their secondary goal is to provide a common reference voltage for all interconnected electrical and electronic systems. The program tool that is able to simulate the transient performance of grounding systems is fundamental, because it enables the optimization of the GS design, as well as the minimization of the disturbance level in the protected area. For that very reason, the goal of this research is to develop the methodology which allows a complete three-dimensional transient calculation of electromagnetic eld, including the displacement current. So far, three basic concepts have been used to simulate the transient performance of grounding arrangements: the circuit approach, the transmission line approach, and the electromagnetic eld approach [1]. In this paper, the solution to analyze the transient behavior of grounding system is based on the electromagnetic eld theory and on the implementation of FEM. The validity of the suggested method of analysis has been veried by the comparison of obtained results with the numerical and experimental results found in [7].

Equation (1.b) denes a well-known relation: divergence of that occurs in the conductive dothe total current density consists of two components: conducmain is equal to zero. tion current density (1.c) and displacement current den(1.d). sity (1.c) (1.d) The following equation can be written for the non-conductive domain: (2) Where is the permeability, the electrical conductivity and is the permittivity. Equations (1.a) and (1.b) already contain the Coulumbs gauge to ensure the unique solution to the magnetic vector potential , which is given in greater detail in [2]. By applying the nite elements procedure and weighted residual method [2], the following equations for conductive domain are obtained (3a), (3b):

II. FEM MODEL OF TRANSIENT ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD WITH CONSIDERATION OF DISPLACEMENT CURRENT The governing partial differential equation for transient problems of GS can be derived from Maxwells equations. When magnetic vector potential , electric scalar potential , conduction and displacement current are introduced to the conductive domain the following equations are obtained: For the non-conductive domain the (4) is given: (4) (1.a) (1.b) The described problem is an open boundary problem. Therefore, the numerical model includes the spatial transformation [3], which divides the total domain of the open boundary problem onto a non-transformed inner domain and the transformed outer (innite) domain. In order to get an accurate eld calculation, the soil and the air in the transformed and non-transformed domain of the problem are discretized by 20 nodes second order 3D nite elements. The conductors of the grounding grid or rods are discretized by the 3 nodes second order 1D nite elements [6], [8]. The nal FEM equation is (3a) (3b)

Manuscript received June 27, 2011; accepted October 10, 2011. Date of current version January 25, 2012. Corresponding author: M. Trlep (e-mail: mladen. trlep@uni-mb.si). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TMAG.2011.2172918

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represented by a system of second order ordinary differential (6) represents the modied electric scalar po(5), where and are tential [2], in order to ensure that matrices , symmetrical. (5) (6) The column vector of unknown nodal potentials in (5) is . Next column vectors are the rst and the second are corresponding derivative of nodal potentials and , , and and matrices, which are linked with the potentials the Laplacian operator ; with the conduction current and with the displacement current . Time integration (5) can be conducted with different time-step algorithms such as Newmarks, Crank-Nicolsons, Wilsons and others [8]. With an assumption of linear interpolation throughout time [8], and with the use of the Newmark algorithm, the following recursive (7) is obtained from (5):

(7) where parameters and are given by the following expressions: and . The recursive (7) enables the calculation of the potential, in the new time step , depending on the preceding time step (n). During the GS analysis, two cases can occur: I. Voltage waveform is given for the injection point (IP), where the current is injected. It is necessary to calculate . II. Injected current waveform is given and it is necessary for the injection point. to calculate Result for both cases is the same nal (5) and the algorithm (7) is used for time integration. However, in case II, it is necessary, within each and every time interval, to additionally use current iteration loop, which is shown in the Fig. 1. Voltage Waveform is Given: It can be seen from Fig. 1 , it is necessary to set up the that for each time moment value of the electric potential for the injection point that represents an initial condition. The value of the electric potential can be obtained from voltage waveform : . By applying (7), and are calculated for the domain and afterwards the injected current is calculated as well . The procedure is repeated for all time moments, within time interval and . is Given: The case II (Fig. 1) also Current Waveform requires to set up the value of the electric potential for the injection point for the time moment . The value of is known, it the potential is now unknown. Although the does not help with formulation and it does not enable to set up directly the potential value for the injected point. It can be solved by applying the iteration approach. On the basis of the already calculated potential, in the previous time moment , as well as the known current value and , can be assumed. Therefore, the values of potential the procedure to calculate and as well as the

Fig. 1. Time step algorithm based on: I. the known voltage waveform u(t), II. The known current waveform i(t).

corresponding current is the same as in case I. The and calculated current must be equal after given current the iteration process is completed. In order to achieve such equality the iteration loop is necessary. Inside the current iteration loop changes until the acceptable difference (EPS%) is reached between the given value of current and calculated value of current . The presented cases show that between three and six iterations, at the allowed error of have been necessary to calculate the current within a single time interval. It means that the case II is more time consuming, since the calculation time is approximately , where N_iter represents the average number of iterations for a single time interval. III. APPLICATION AND RESULTS The application of program solution for both approaches is shown for the grounding grid from [7]. The considered grounding grid is of a rectangular type with dimensions 10 m 10 m. It is made out of round copper conductors that are 50 in cross section. There are four meshes in a grid, each measuring 5 m 5 m, as shown in Fig. 2. The grounding grid is buried 0,5 m horizontally below the earth surface into a two-layer soil with the upper-layer resistivity (from earth surface to the depth of 0,6 m) of 50 and the bottom-layer resistivity of 20 and relative permittivity . The application of our FEM solution is presented to analyze the behaviour of the grounding grid when fed by an injected time variable voltage or current at the discharge point, and the ratio between the nominal time increase and time to half-value the impulse waveform voltage front respectively. The Fig. 3(a) shows the comparison between the calculated and measured current (case I). Fig. 3(b) shows a similar comparison for case II.

TRLEP et al.: TRANSIENT CALCULATION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD FOR GROUNDING SYSTEM

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TABLE I RATIO BETWEEN SOIL PROPERTIES  AND "

Fig. 2. Schematic view of the grounding grid under analysis.

Fig. 3. (a) Comparison of the measured and calculated transient current. (b) Comparison of the measured and calculated transient potential. Fig. 4. (a) Transient potentials for the IP of the grounding grid. (b) Components of the transient current of the grounding grid.

Comparison between cases I and II shows that the difference among calculated and measured values exists, which is the consequence of time integration, input data accuracy (conductivity and permittivity) and accuracy of the measured and . It is important to be aware of the fact that in case I the and the current , is calculated. input data is and the poThe case II is reversed; the input data is tential is calculated. In case II, the chosen value of the EPS% additionally inuences on the accuracy of the computation. Both cases have been calculated with (7) for and . However, the notable differences between the respectively have not been time behavior of detected. The consideration of the displacement current during the transient calculation of the electromagnetic eld of the GS makes the analysis even more complex. The problem, which is of the rst order (without ), becomes the second order time dependent problem (7). Therefore, the question arises when is it necessary to consider the as well? If the considered calculation is transient and the injected current in a GS is a pulse current, the answer to the previous question lies in the ratio between the electric conductivity and permittivity of the soil and in the ratio between the injected current slope and current value. The case I, however, requires the ratio of the driven voltage slope and voltage value. Let us assumed the the specic conductivity of soil is between and or even less, relative permittivity is

between and . Therefore, by applying the given (1.c), (1.d), the ratio between and can be expressed with (8), which provides the important information when there is a possibility of the greatest inuence of the displacement current. (8) If the ratio is calculated for all combinations of and (cases: a, b, c, d), the following values are obtained, Table I. It can be noticed that the contribution of is the largest in cases when soil has a low conductivity and high permittivity (case d). The contribution is signicantly lower when the conductivity is high and the permittivity is low (case a). The comparison for all four combinations of and has been conducted for the case of grounding grid (Fig. 2) and standardized lightning current waveform [9] (IEC 1312-1, rst stroke, , , ). The analysis has conrmed previous conclusions that the displacement current is relatively speaking the highest in case d. Only in that case the displacement current is comparable to the conduction current but only within the time interval when the potential and/or total current increases. In all other cases (a, b, c) the displacement current is neglected.

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Fig. 5(b) shows new case c. In the previous case c the displacement current was negligible. The circumstances are now completely different and the displacement current is high enough and cannot be neglected. IV. CONCLUSION The paper presents transient calculation of electromagnetic eld for grounding system based on consideration of displacement current, which represents a time dependent problem of the 2nd order. Usually the contribution of displacement current is taken into consideration in the case of low soil conductivity. The displacement current can be neglected when the soil conductivity is high. The permittivity is also an important parameter, however, due to a soil type, it does not change signicantly. The is probably the most imporslope of current waveform tant. Analysis of circumstances for boundary values of electric conductivity and permittivity of normal soil, as well as for two characteristics current waveform (IEC 1312) gives the following conclusions. In the case of current waveform, comparable to the rst stroke, the contribution of the displacement current is very limited. During the stroke with extremely high slope, comparable to the IEC 1312, subsequent stroke, the contribution of the displacement current must be taken into consideration, which leads to an accurate calculation of electromagnetic eld for the grounding system.
Fig. 5. (a) Components of the transient current of the grounding grid. (b) Components of the transient current of the grounding grid.

REFERENCES
[1] L. Grcev and F. Dawalibi, An electromagnetic model for transients in grounding systems, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 17731781, Oct. 1990. [2] O. Biro and K. Preis, On the use of the magnetic vector potential in the nite element analysis of the three dimensional eddy current, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 31453159, Jul. 1989. [3] A. Stochniol, A general transformation for open boundary nite element method for electromagnetic problems, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 16791681, Mar. 1992. [4] B. Nekhoul, C. Guerin, P. Labie, G. Meunier, and R. Feuillet, A nite element method for calculating the electromagnetic elds generated by substation grounding systems, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 21502153, May 1995. [5] B. Nekhoul, P. Labie, F. X. Zgainski, and G. Meunier, Calculating the impedance of a grounding system, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 15091512, May 1996. [6] M. Trlep, A. Hamler, and B. Hribernik, The analysis of complex grounding systems by FEM, IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 34, pp. 25212524, Sep. 1998. , M. S. Savic , J. M. Nahman, D. Salamon, and B. Buko[7] Z. Stojkovic , Sensitivity analysis of experimentally determined grounding rovic grid impulse characteristics, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 11361141, Oct. 1998. [8] I. M. Smith and D. V. Grifths, Programming the Finite Element Methods, 4th ed. Hoboken: Wiley, 2004. [9] Protection Against Lightning Electromagnetic Impulse. Part 1: General Principles, IEC International Standard 1312-1, IEC, 1995, Geneva, Switzerland.

Fig. 4(a) shows the comparison between time behaviour of potentials for the injection point. Fig. 4(b) shows comparison between conduction and displacement current for case d. The displacement current can be neglected even in theworst case (case d), because the percentage value varies below 1% of , except at the beginning of the time response when it can even reach 30% of . The crucial role is also played by the slope and amplitude of the injected current. If the analysis is repeated under lightning current waveform of higher slope [9] (IEC 1312-1, subsequent stroke, , , ), the results are completely different. The displacement current is more obvious as it is shown in the following graphs. Fig. 5(a) shows the situation for case d, in which the contribution is the largest, as it is the case in the previous example (rst stroke). The inuence of the displacement current is crucial because, at the beginning, it even dominates over the conduction current. Afterwards the values are approximately the same and when the total current reaches the maximum, then conduction current dominates over the displacement current.