30th International Conference on Lightning Protection - ICLP 2010
(Cagliari, Italy - September 13th -17th, 2010)
INFLUENCE OF IMPULSE BREAKDOWN DELAY
OF SOIL ON LIGHTNING PROTECTION CHARACTERISTICS
OF TRANSMISSION LINE
Jinliang He1a, Baoping Zhang1, Rong Zeng1, Jie Zhao2b, Hong Rao2c, Zongyuan Cai2d
1
State Key Lab of Power System, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2
Technology Research Center, China Southern Power Grid, Guangzhou, 510623, P.R.China
a
hejl@tsinghua.edu.cn; b zhaojie@csg.cn; c raohong@csg.cn; d caizy@csg.cn
ABSTRACT
The impulse breakdown delay of soil is significant for
evaluating the lightning trip-out rate of transmission lines.
This paper experimentally studied the impulse breakdown
delay phenomenon of soil, the factors influencing the
impulse breakdown delay phenomenon of soil are analyzed.
At last, the influence of the impulse breakdown delay
phenomenon of soil on the lightning protection
characteristics of transmission lines is analyzed. The
lightning withstand level would decrease with the increase
of the soil impulse breakdown time delay.
1 INTRODUCTION
The impulse characteristics of grounding are directly
decided by the impulse characteristics of surrounding soil.
Under the high impulse current, there is a transient
electric field generated around the grounding, when the
electric field is higher than the initial breakdown electric
field strength, the surrounding soil is penetrated and the
spark discharges occurs, then the resistivity of breakdown
soil decreases significantly, and the impedance of the
grounding also decreases obviously.
The impulse breakdown delay of soil is significant for
evaluating the lightning trip-out rate of transmission lines,
which is related to the potential at the tower top when a
lightning strikes on a tower, the potential at the tower top
is given as
dit di
ut = Ri it + Lt = β ( Ri i + Lt ) (1)
dt dt
where, ut is the potential at the tower top; it is the current
flowing through the tower; Lt is the equivalent inductance
of the tower; i is the lightning current; β is the shunt
coefficient of the tower, that is the ratio of the tower
current and the whole lightning current; Ri is the impulse
resistance of the tower grounding.
When other parameters are fixed, the potential at the
tower top and the lightning trip-out rate will directly
decided by the impulse grounding resistance, which is the
ratio of the impulse voltage on the grounding device and
the impulse current injecting into the grounding device at
the same time.
Many papers have discussed the breakdown
phenomena and mechanisms of soil [1]-[13]. More
studies have been made to identify the critical breakdown
electric field strength Ec [7]-[13], which ranged from tens
to thousands kV/m. E. E. Oettle proposed a relationship
between the critical breakdown electric field strength Ec
and the resistivity of soil [8]. Mousa analyzed the tests
results in literatures, and proposed 300kV/m as the value
of Ec [9].
All the literatures mentioned above mainly focused on
the parameter Ec, but few discussions on the impulse
breakdown delay can be found. The breakdown delay of
soil is an important parameter describing the soil impulse
breakdown. For any dielectric, when an impulse voltage
high enough is applied, it is not penetrated immediately,
there is always a time delay until the breakdown occurs,
and this is called the impulse breakdown delay.
In this paper, the impulse breakdown delay
characteristics of soils were experimentally studied, and
then the influence of the impulse breakdown delay of soil
on the lightning protection characteristics of transmission
line was studied.
2 IMPULSE BREAKDOWN DELAY OF SOIL
2.1 The Test Method
The experiment arrangement is shown in Figure 1. The
impulse voltage generator can generate the 1.2/50 μs
standard lightning impulse voltage, the impulse voltage is
applied on the soil sample placed between the electrodes.
The screened sand is used as the soil sample, and its
particle size is smaller than 0.9 mm. The container of soil
sample and electrodes is shown in Figure1. The diameter
of the sphere electrodes D is 11 cm, and the distance of
soil gap d can be adjusted in the range from 0 to 5 cm.
During the tests, d is fixed as 4 cm, and the electric field
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between electrodes is relatively uniform due to the ratio
of D to d higher than 2.
Figure 1. The experimental arrangement and test cell of sphere-to-
sphere electrode.
2.2 Typical Waveforms of Impulse Current and
Voltage
For the soil gap, when an impulse voltage is applied,
the soil gap will be penetrated after a certain time delay,
the voltage and current waveforms will be chopped. The
chopped waves of voltage and current are shown in
Figure 2, where Um is the peak value of impulse voltage,
Uc is the value at the chopping moment, tb is the soil
impulse breakdown delay. In the tests, the breakdown can
occur in different time due to different impulse voltage
applied. When the impulse is low, the breakdown occurs
at the wave tail, and when the impulse is high, the
breakdown occurs at the wave front before the voltage
rises to the peak. The voltage remains a low value after
breakdown due to the residual resistivity of the soil.
Figure 2. The voltage and current waveforms under the sphere-to-sphere
electrode.
Due to the differences of varied chopped waves, the
impulse peak voltage Um is not appropriate to be plotted
with the impulse breakdown delay, because Um is
unknown if the breakdown occurs at wave front; the
voltage at the chopping moment Uc is also not proper,
because if it is adopted, the breakdown at wave front and
wave tail can not be plotted orderly, the time delay of
higher chopping voltage may be larger than that of lower
chopping voltage. In the analysis of this paper, the charge
voltage of the impulse generator is used to analyze the
influence of the impulse voltage on the breakdown delay.
2.3 Analysis of Soil Impulse Breakdown Delay
The soil impulse breakdown delays under different
temperature and moisture of soil, and different polarity of
the impulse are shown in Figures 3 to 9.
2.3.1 Influences of Impulse Polarity on Soil Impulse
Breakdown Delay
As shown in Figures 3 to 9, for the same voltage, the
soil impulse breakdown delay under the negative impulse
is slightly higher than that under the positive impulse.
This is because the gas discharge under a positive
impulse is easier than that under a negative impulse, thus
the critical breakdown voltage under positive impulse is
relatively low [11-13], and the difference of the soil
impulse breakdown delay under the same voltage value is
relatively small.
2.3.2 Influences of Impulse Voltage on Soil Impulse
Breakdown Delay
Figures 6 to 12 show the impacts of the charge voltage
value of the impulse voltage generator on the soil impulse
breakdown delay. Obviously, no matter the temperature
and the moisture of the soil, and the polarity of impulse,
the soil impulse breakdown delay reduces with the
increase of the charge voltage. It changes in the range of
several hundred nanoseconds to over ten microseconds.
When the charge voltage is relatively low, the time delay
of soil impulse breakdown decreases sharply with the
increase of the charge voltage, then it decreases slowly
with the increase of the charge voltage, and shows a clear
saturation trend. When the charge voltage reaches about
100 kV, the breakdown delays are in the range from 0.29
μs to 0.85 μs, which are close in different temperature,
and the average is about 0.5 μs.
14
12 1% possitive
1% negative
10 5% possitive
5% negative
Time Delay (μs)
8 10% possitive
10% negative
6
4
2
0
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Charge Voltage (kV)
Figure 3. The influences of the soil moisture on soil impulse breakdown
delay at normal temperature.
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 16 10
o
20 C-positive
14 1% possitive o
20 C-negative
1% negative 8 o
12 5% possitive 0 C-positive

Time Delay (μs)

o
5% negative 0 C-negative
Time Delay (μs)

10 10% possitive 6 o
-15 C-positive
10% negative o
-15 C-negative
8 o
4 -30 C-positive
6 o
-30 C-negative
4
2
2

0 0
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Charge Voltage (kV) Charge Voltage (kV)
Figure 4. The influences of the soil moisture on soil impulse breakdown
delay at 0oC. Figure 7. The influences of the temperature on the impulse breakdown
delay of the soil with 1% water content.

20
o
1% possitive 12 20 C-positive
o
1% negative 20 C-negative
16 o
5% possitive 0 C-positive
Time Delay (μs)

o
5% negative 0 C-negative
Time Delay (μs)

12 10% possitive 8 o
-15 C-positive
10% negative o
-15 C-negative
o
-30 C-positive
8 o
4 -30 C-negative

0
0 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Charge Voltage (kV) Charge Voltage (kV)

Figure 5. The influences of the soil moisture on soil impulse breakdown Figure 8. The influences of the temperature on the impulse breakdown
delay at -15oC. delay of the soil with 5% water content.

20
16 o
20 C-positive
1% possitive o
20 C-negative
14 1% negative 16 o
0 C-positive
Time Delay (μs)

o
12 5% possitive 0 C-negative
o
5% negative -15 C-positive
Time Delay (μs)

12 o
10 10% possitive -15 C-negative
o
10% negative -30 C-positive
8 8
o
-30 C-negative

6
4
4
2 0
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
0
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 Charge Voltage (kV)
Charge Voltage (kV) Figure 9. The influences of the temperature on the impulse breakdown
delay of the soil with 10% water content.
Figure 6. The influences of the soil moisture on soil impulse breakdown
delay at -30oC.

1053-3
2.3.3 Influences of Soil Moisture on Soil Impulse insulator string is about 3~4 μs, if the impulse breakdown
Breakdown Delay delay of soil is longer than this, the soil ionization effects
should not be considered in evaluating the lightning trip-
Figures 3 to 6 show the impulse breakdown delays of
out rate, otherwise the soil ionization should be
soils with varied water contents changing with the charge
considered.
voltage at varied temperatures. It can be seen from these
According to the analysis above, the impulse voltage
figures, under the same charge voltage, the higher the
amplitude affects the soil impulse breakdown delay
water content is, the greater the impulse breakdown delay
greatly. For the given soil gap and test electrodes in this
and the steepness of the curve are, and the higher the
paper, with the change of the impulse voltage, the
charge voltage corresponding to the saturation is. When
impulse breakdown delay of soil may vary from 0.5 to 15
the impulse voltage is relatively high, the impulse
breakdown delays of soils with varied water contents μs. This would have influence on the lightning protection
approach gradually. of transmission line. The direct influence is on the
ionization characteristics of transmission towers.
2.3.4 Influences of Temperature on Soil Impulse We analyzed the possible influence of the impulse
Breakdown Delay breakdown time delay on the lightning protection
performances of 220-kV and 500-kV transmission lines,
Temperature can affect the status of the water in soil, the tower structures are shown in Figure 7.
thus it can affect the soil breakdown time delay
characteristics.
Figures 7 to 9 show the impulse breakdown delays of
soils at varied temperatures changing with the charge
voltage. The lower the temperature is, the larger the soil
impulse breakdown delay under the same voltage is. The
soil impulse breakdown delay just varies significantly
under relatively low voltage, and becomes saturation at a
low charge voltage.

2.3.5 Impulse Breakdown Delay

According to the experimental results from the soil gap
between two sphere electrodes under 1.2/50μs standard
lightning impulse voltage, the impulse breakdown delay
of soil varies from 0.5 to 15 μs when the applied voltage
is changed. As the charge voltage increase, the influence
of temperature and moisture on the breakdown delay
becomes weak. When the charge voltage reaches about
100 kV the breakdown delays are in the range from 0.29
μs to 0.85 μs, which are close in different temperature,
and the average is about 0.5 μs. The actual impulse
breakdown delay of the actual grounding devices should
be tested in the future research work.
3 INFLUENCE OF IMPULSE BREAKDOWN OF
SOIL ON LIGHTNING PROTECTION OF
TRANSMISSION LINES
When an impulse current is applied to the grounding,
due to the inductance effects, the impulse resistance is
very high at the beginning, and if the soil ionization
effects would generate in a short time, the impulse
grounding resistance value will rapidly decrease and the
potential of the tower top will be limited. Whether or not
considering the ionization effects of soil in the lightning
protection analysis depends on the value of the soil
impulse breakdown delay. The flashover time of the
Figure 7. The structures of analyzed (a) 220-kV and (b) 500-kV
transmission lines.
3.1 Analysis Model of Tower Grounding
Devices[14]
When a high lightning current excites a grounding
conductor, the ionized zone of the soil around the
conductor is not columniform but pyramidal, which can
be simulated by a loss transmission line model as shown
in Figure 8, the shunt capacitance C and shunt
conductance G are related to the equivalent diameters of
every conductor segment, so they are time-varying. The
electric field strength on the boundary of ionized zone is
the critical value of soil breakdown. The equivalent
radius for each segment can be obtained by
J i = Ec ρ = Δii (2πai li ) (2)
where, Ji is the current density leaked by the ith segment;
Δii is the current leaked into earth from the ith segment.
The value used for the critical field gradient in this paper
is selected as 300 kV/m. Figure 9 shows the mutual

1053-4
impedance diagram between two segments of a
grounding device. Square grounding devices with side 180
length of 10 m with burial depth of 2 m are selected as

Lightning withstand level (kA)

160
shown in Figure 10, the soil resistivity is set as 1000 Ω⋅m.
The power frequency grounding resistance is 33.27Ω.
140
This grounding device model is embedded into 500kV Line
220kV Line
PSCAD/EMTDC software package to analyze the 120
influence of soil breakdown delay.
100

80

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

Time Delay (us)

Figure 11. Effects of the breakdown delay on direct lightning

Figure 8. The loss transmission line model of a grounding withstand level in case of a sample 500kV line and 220kV line.
electrode.
6000 500kV Line
not consider ionization
Delay Time=0 μs
Tower bottom potential (kV)

Delay Time=0.5 μs
Delay Time=1.0 μs
4000 Delay Time=2.0 μs
Delay Time=3.0 μs

2000

0
Figure 9. The mutual impedance diagram between two 0 2 4 6 8 10
segments of a grounding device.
Time (μs)

Tower foot (a)

Ground
4000 500kV Line
not consider ionization
Delay Time=0 μs
Delay Time=0.5 μs
3000 Delay Time=1.0 μs
Insulator voltage (kV)

Delay Time=2.0 μs
Delay Time=3.0 μs
Grounding
2000
2.0m Device
10m

1000
Figure 10. Schematic map of grounding device of tower.

3.2 Analysis Results 0

0 2 4 6 8 10
Figure 11 shows the influence of the impulse Time (μs)
breakdown time delay on the lightning withstand levels
of the typical 220-kV and 500-kV transmission lines to (b)
direct lightning as shown in Figure 5, during our analysis,
the lightning current with the standard lightning impulse Figure 12. Calculated voltage in case of a sample 500kV line
current waveform of 2.6/50 μs. The analyzed results and lightning current of 150kA. (a)Tower bottom potential.
show the lightning withstand level of transmission line (b)Insulator voltage.
has an obvious decrease as the time delay increases.

1053-5

2500
220kV Line
Tower Bottom Potential (kV)
2000
1500
1000
500
0 This overshot would affect the flashover of the insulators.
0 2 4 6
Time (μs)
(a)
220kV Line
1500
Insulator Voltage (kV)
1000
500
0
0 2 4 6
Time (μs)
(b)
Figure 13. Calculated voltage in case of a sample 220kV line
and lightning current of 60kA. (a)Tower bottom potential.
(b)Insulator voltage.
In our analysis, the impulse breakdown time delay is in
the range from 0 to 4 μs. The higher the time delay is, the
lower the lightning withstand level is. If the impulse
breakdown time delay is in the range from 0 to 0.5μs, it
only has very slight influence on the lightning withstand
level of transmission line, and it can be neglected.
Figure 12 and Figure 13 show an example of the
simulated waveforms of tower bottom potential and
insulator voltage corresponding to different impulse
breakdown delay, and the waveform when the soil
ionization is not considered is also included, it is the
worst condition for lightning protection of transmission
lines. When the time arrives the soil breakdown time
delay set in simulation, the grounding resistance varying
in time-domain and frequency-domain abruptly falls off,
the voltage of tower bottom and insulator decreases
suddenly from the higher value of not ionization to the
not consider ionization
Delay Time=0 μs
Delay Time=0.5 μs
Delay Time=1.0 μs
Delay Time=2.0 μs
Delay Time=3.0 μs
8 10
not consider ionization
Delay Time=0 μs
Delay Time=0.5 μs
Delay Time=1.0 μs
Delay Time=2.0 μs
Delay Time=3.0 μs
8 10
lower value of ionization following the decrease of
equivalent grounding resistance. So as the time delay
increases, the insulator voltage reduced at certain time
which gives rise to the decrease of lightning withstand
level.
As shown in Figures 12 and 13, when the impulse
breakdown delay is considered, the potential of the tower
grounding device and the voltage on the insulators would
emerge an overshot. When the time delay is about 0.5 μs,
the respective overshot is small, but when the time delay
reaches about 1 μs, the respective overshot would be high.
When the impulse breakdown delay reaches about 3.5
μs, the lightning withstand levels of 500-kV and 220-kV
will decrease about 8.3% and 16.0%.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The impulse breakdown delay is an import parameter
describing the soil breakdown under the impulse voltage.
Through the tests, we get some basic conclusions: the soil
impulse breakdown delay decreases with the increase of
the impulse voltage applied; the higher the soil moisture
is, the greater the soil impulse breakdown delay is; the
lower the soil temperature is, the greater the soil impulse
breakdown delay is; the larger the soil density is, the
greater the soil impulse breakdown delay is.
According to the experimental results from the soil gap
between two sphere electrodes under 1.2/50μs standard
lightning impulse voltage, the impulse breakdown delay
of soil varies from 0.5 to 15 μs when the applied voltage
is changed. As the charge voltage increase, the influence
of temperature and moisture on the breakdown delay
becomes weak. When the charge voltage reaches about
100 kV the breakdown delays are in the range from 0.29
μs to 0.85 μs, which are close in different temperature,
and the average is about 0.5 μs.
The grounding device model considering the soil
ionization is built and embedded into PSCAD/EMTDC
software package to analyze the impulse breakdown
delay on the lightning protection of transmission lines.
The higher the time delay is, the lower the lightning
withstand level is. If the impulse breakdown time delay is
in the range from 0 to 0.5μs, it only has very slight
influence on the lightning withstand level of transmission
line, and it can be neglected. When the impulse
breakdown delay reaches about 3.5 μs, the lightning
withstand levels of 500-kV and 220-kV will decrease
about 8.3% and 16.0%.
5 ACHNOLEDGEMENT
This work was supported in part by the National
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Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant vol.42, no.4, pp.875-878, April 2006.
5073001 and in part by the National Basic Research
Program of China (973 Program) under Grant
2009CB724504.

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