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Current and voltage distributions in earthing systems. A numerical

simulation based on the dynamic model of impulse soil conductivity

Article · January 1990

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 139
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LIGHTNING PROTECTION
BERLIN, GERMANY SEPTEMBER 21-25, 1992
A NUMERICAL IDENTIFICATION OF DYNAMIC MODEL PARAMETERS OF
SURGE SOIL CONDUCTION BASED ON EXPERIMENTAL DATA
M. Loboda
Institute of Power Engineering and High Voltage Technology
Warsaw University of
Abstract
This paper presents some results of experimental
investigations of surge characteristics of soil
samples carried out using impulse current inJec-
tion method and digital measurement system. Nume-
rical treatment of a few experimental records was
used for evaluation of parameters describing the
nonlinear characteristics of soil, according to
the previously proposed dynamic model of surge
soil conduction [5, 6J .
For those analysis a procedure of estimation of
dynamic model parameters was developed, basing on
the voltage and current records fitting for diffe-
rential equations solution discribing the testing
circuit and the model.
Introduction
The knowledge of the ground resistance value un-
der lightning current is not sufficient to deter-
mine its surge response. Due to the inductive
high-frequency behaviour of the grounding and to
the local soil ionization, a ground electrode
transient characteristics has to be considered as
nonlinear. The ionization process in the soil
starts when the electrical field strength over
a ground electrode exceeds the electrical with-
stahd of the soil. With the voltage gradient
growth the spark-channel zone is created in the
soil surrounding the electrode surface and soils
conductance (or resistance) starts to be nonli-
near. Such a nonlinear and transient behaviour of
grounding electrodes was observed in several expe-
3.10
Z. Pochanke
Technology. Poland.
riments Cl,2,3,4,5,7,10J and resulted the
development of different models of grounding
structures suitable for the computation of their
surge response [4,5,7, B, 9 ] .
The deficiency of known experiment, some of them
have been performed many years ago, was limitation
of means needed for fitting of proposed models to
measured results. It was caused by lack of asso-
ciation of experiments with advanced methods of
numerical identification of investigated objects,
especially nonlinear.
Such a numerical identification based on experi-
mental data was undertaken by authors to the des-
cription of surge soil conduction.
Experimental test and equipment.
Tests of selected soil types were performed using
the circuit presented in Fig. 1. The single stage
surge generator 120 kV, 5 kJ was connected with
inner electrode coaxially placed in the cylinder
filled with specific type of soil. This test cir-
cuit allows to produce a family of u = f(i) cha-
racteristics registrated using digital osciloscope
and stored in PC computer.
Two types of soil were tested: sand and clay with
current impulses up to BOO A crest value, which
enabled a discharge current density of 8 A/cm 2 .
The current front times were 5 ... 10 ~s.
Examplary waveforms and u = f( i) characteristics
family for sandy soil are shown in Fig. 2 and 3.
 140

Corrected model of surge soil conduction

L
In the model proposed in earlier papers [5,6J
the ground electrode conductance is described by
two-pole consisting of two parallel dissipative
branches - linear and nonlinear.
-- E
__ tn
Voltage - current plots derived from recent digi-
a
tal records of voltage and current waveiormsreve-
aled a specific behaviour of the current, depic-
ted schematically in Fig. 4b. The current rises
initially according to its AC 50 Hz conductance
gLAC than seems to tent to a certain saturation
analog and - after having followed typical hysteresis
optical link
loop - ends according to conductance denoted in
Fig. 4b as gLDC' smaller then gLAC·

Fig. 1. Test circuit to determine and a) b)

u /
record soil surge characteristics.
/
50 500

P
kV A

40 400
A
--
1.JI.ill7I---r--- r-- t--
>tx
~

U gLDC
30 300
V ~

20 200
/1 ~
I~~ ~
..!J!i/ ~ re= timel10
R ~ ------

------- ----
to 100
I ~ F=: ~
I-
0
10 12 14 16 18 us 20
Fig. 4. The structure (a) and u " f(i)
characteristic (b) of corrected
Fig. 2. Examplary recorded waveforms: model of surge soil conduction.
a - of current, b - of voltage
(sand 9" 800 Q .m). Whatever is the physical explanation of the above
phenomenon, its effect is similar to the tran-
40r------.-------,-------.------~----__, sient induced by a RC branch aided to the model
kV as shown in Fig. 4a.
The corrected model satisfies following set of
differential equations:
u . gLAC + ic + iN iCt) (1)
20r-----~~~~~------~------4_----~

diN iNo(u) + iN
(2)
Cit T
10r-~~~--~---+------~------4_----~

R . ic + i J ic dt " u (3)

100 200 300 400 A 500

with the current excitation i(t) and steady-state
characteristic of the nonlinear branch
Fig. 3. The experimental u " f(i) characte-
ristics family (sand 9" 800 .Q. m). (4)
 141

It should be noted that in given plot of u(i) stem, i.e. the model equations (1) - (5) and the
loop the point P of iNo (u) characteristic is equation of the impulse current generator.
defined by the condition Current i(t) and voltage u(t) waveforms being
(5) obtained according to this method for different
values of unknown T and C are fitted to the re-
corded i(t) and u(t). Estimates T, C are defined
Identification of model's parameters as minimalizing the sum of fitting errors:

According to the model the subject of identi- { T, C } : min Q (T, C) (6)

T,C
fication are: linear conductances gLAC and gLDC'
parameters A and ~ of the steady-state charac- with
teristic iNo(u), time constant T and capacity C.
Only T and C must be evaluated usino a method Q i
k=l
Ci k
w.
1
.,. )2
- lk + L
N

k=l wu
- 2
(Uk - Uk) (7)

of dynamic system identification. Remaining para-

meters are found as follows:
- gLAC: from the measurement by means of low
AC voltage,
- gLDC: from the slope of last part of u(i) cha-
racteristic plotted from given pair of
u(t) and i(t) records,
- A and c(; from the serie of steady-state
points P (see Fig. 4b) determined
from the family of u(i) characte-
ristic plotted for given kind of
soil; least square method is used
to fit a curre iNo = Au.t. to such
a serie of points. Typical result
is shown in Fig. 5.
50
kV
40 ~
V--
where: - k is index of current and voltage
samples (i.e. i = i(t = k.h); h - means
k
sampling time step).
- Wi' Wu - weighting factors equalizing
scales of current and voltage errors.
In minimalization of least squares Q the sensiti-
vity functions [11, 12J of the type
t (t) = d Y (t) (8)
yx dx
(y may be i(t) or u(t) and x may be T or C) is
used so Jacoby matrix can be found and finally
very efficient Newton-Raphson method is applied.
Character of achieved results is shown in Fig.6.
It is to be noticed, that only the first, criti-
cal for creation of the peak voltage value, time
interval (-16 ~s) was submitted to the fitting

.x:r ~
procedure .
30

V Distinct differences between the fitted and

20 / recorded voltage and current waveforms written

10 I
II
first 2~s must have been caused by too simple
(C, R, L) equivalent of the imoulse current
generator.
o Summary of results is given in Tab.l for sandy
o 100 200 300 400 A 500
soil samples.
Fig. 5. Data and fitted c~aracteristic i~o(u) Relativelly high mean values of fitting error
for sand of J = 800 .Q • m; data from and dependence of time constant T on the exci-
tests with current crest time: ting current value suggest the model to be not
x - 5 ~s, 0 - 10 ~s. quite adequate. Some, not presented here trials
have shown that the time constant is changing
For capacity C and time constant T the full in-
with instantaneous value of the conductance of
tegral method with least square ctiterion is
the nonlinear branch.
used. The method consists in solving the comple-
te set of differential equations of the test sy-
 142

Conclusions
50 500
Digital recording applied together with integral
,y A
fi tting technique to estimation of dynamic model's
40 400
parameters allowed to correct the model of surge

30 300
I~~ V
#/ - - soil conduction by introducing a paiallel RC

(( J ~ branch to account for initial part of the soil

conduction.
20 200

10 100
VPi That technique also allowed to verify the concept
of the model inertia suggesting variation of the
parameter T.
o 0
o 10 12 14 16 18 us 20 Developed Newton-Raphson method with sensitivity
functions used to construct Jacoby matrix proved
40,-------,-------,-------,-------,------, its efficiency.
,y
References
30~------~--_7~~----~~------~----~
1. Bellaschi P.L.: "Impulse and 6o-cycle charac-
teristics of driven grounds". Trans. AlEE,
20~----~r---~~~------~------~----~ 1941, 60, pp. 123-128.
2. Bellaschi P.L.:, Armington R.E., Snowden A.E.:
10~--~--~------~------~------~----~
"Impulse and 6o-cycle characteristics of dri-
ven grounds. Pt. II". ibid. 1942, 61,
pp. 349 - 363.
100 200 300 400 A 500
3. Berger K.: "Das Verhalten von Erdungan unter
hohen Stosstr/:lmen". Bull. SEV, 1946, 37,
Fig. 6. Result of fitting voltage and current pp. 197 - 211.
waveforms for sand of 9 = 800 Q .m
4. Uew A.C., Darveniza B.E.: "Dynamic model of
tested with current 378 A of crest
impulse characteristic of concentrated earths"
time 5 I-1s.
Proc. lEE, 1974, 121, pp. 123 - 135.
Tab. 1. Results of model parameters identifica- 5. Loboda M., Pochanke Z.: "Experimental study of
tion of sand: ~ = 800 )l.m, gLDC=3.3mS, electric properties of soil with impulse cur-
gLAC = 11.1 mS, c( = 2.415, rent injections". Conf. Proc. ICLP 85.
A = 4.351.1D- 2A at [uJ = 1 kV VDE-Verlag, Munich 1985, pp. 191 - 198.
6. Loboda M., Pochanke Z.: "Current and voltage
i peak upeak C T Fitting* distributions in earthing systems. A numerical
rAJ [kV] [I-1FJ [l-1sJ error [a/oj simulation based on the dynamic model of soil
impulse CQnduction". Proc. ICLP-9o, Interladen
378.0 38.1 0.15 3.1 6.3 1990, 3.13 Pi1 - Pi7.
325.5 35.4 0.30 2.8 4.8 7. Mazzetti C., Veca G.M.: "Impulse behaviour of
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251. 0 30.1 0.18 Vol. PAS-102, No.9, pp. 3148 - 3154.
3.0 7.4·
147.0 23.1 8. Meliopoulos A.P., Moharam M.G.: "Transient
0.45 2.7 12.0
analysis of grounding systems". IEEE Trans.
on PAS, 1983, Vol. PAS-102, No.2,
pp. 389 - 399.
*V Qi(N-1) related to peak value of the
records. 9. Riabkova E. I.: "Grounding in high voltage en-
gineering". Energia. Moscow 1978 (in Russian).
 143

10. Vainer A.L.: "Impulse characteristics of

grounding grids". Elektrichestvo, 1966, No.3.
pp. 23 - 27.
11. Eykhoff P.: "System identification" John
Wiley and Sons. 1974.
12. Elbert T.F.: "Estimation and control of
systems" Van Noxtrand Reinhold Company
Inc., 1984.

Address of the authors:

Dr eng. Marek Loboda

Dr eng. Zbigniew Pochanke
Institute of Power Engineering
and High Voltage Technology
ul. Koszykowa 75
00-662 Warszawa
Poland

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