Necessity and types of Earthing

Earthing is required to save life from danger of shock or death. Earthing effectively
blows out the fuse of any apparatus which becomes leaky. It protects large building
and all machines fed from overhead lines from atmospheric lightning by taking all
voltage of lighting through the lightning arrester. Good earthing is one which gives
very low resistance to the flow of heavy current of a given circuit. Earth potential
is always as zero for all practical purposes. A wire coming from the ground 2.5
to 3 meters deep from an electrode is called earthing. Double earth is used for 3
phase machine and equipment. When double earth is used, there is an advantage
of redundancy. Pipe earthing, plate earthing etc are the different types of earthing.
In summer, resistance of the earth increases. It can be reduced by pouring water,
increasing the plate area, increasing the depth or by keeping the electrodes in parallel.

Plate Earthing

For good earthing in electric substations, plate earthing is used. Here the loop-
ing earth wire is bolted effectively with the earth plate made up of copper of size
(60*60*0.318) cm (or GI plate of size not less than 60*60*6.35 mm) and embed-
ded 3 meters in ground. A schematic diagram of plate earthing is shown in _figure.
Copper plates are found to be most effective earth electrodes and are not affected by
soil moisture. But due to high material cost galvanized iron plates are preferred and
used for normal works. The plate is kept vertical and so arranged that it is embedded
in an alternate layer of coke and salt for a minimum thickness of around 15cm. Bolts
and nuts should be of copper for copper plates and of galvanized iron for GI plate.
Earthing efficiency increases with the increase of plate area and depth of embedding.
 Plate Earthing

Pipe Earthing

In this method of earthing a G.I. pipe of 38 mm diameter and 2 meter ( 7 feet )

length is embedded vertically into the ground. This pipe acts as an earth electrode.
The depth depends on the condition of the soil. The earth wires are fastened to
the top section of the pipe above the ground level with nut and bolts. The pit area
around the pipe is _filled with salt and coal mixture for improving the condition of
the soil and earthing effciency. The schematic arrangement of pipe earthing system
is shown in the Figure. The contact surface of G.I. pipe with the soil is more as
compared to the plate due to its circular section and hence can handle heavier leakage
current for the same electrode size. According to Indian standard, the pipe should
be placed at a depth of 4.75 m. Impregnating the coke with salt decreases the earth
resistance. Generally alternate layers of salt and coke are used for best results. In
summer season, soil becomes dry, in such case salt water is poured through the funnel
connected to the main G.I. pipe through 19 mm diameter pipe. This keeps the soil
wet. The earth wires are connected to the G.I. pipe above the ground level and can
be physically inspected from time to time. These connections can be checked for
performing continuity tests. This is the important advantage of pipe earthing over
the plate earthing. The earth lead used must be G.I. wire of sufficient cross-sectional
area to carry fault current safely. It should not be less than electrical equivalent of
copper conductor of 12.97 mm^2 cross-sectional area. The only disadvantage of pipe
earthing is that the embedded pipe length has to be increased sufficiently in case the
soil specific resistivity is of high order. This increases the excavation work and hence
increased cost. In ordinary soil condition the range of the earth resistance should be 2
to 5 ohms. In the places where rocky soil earth bed exists, horizontal strip earthing is
used. This is suitable as soil excavation required for plate or pipe earthing is difficult
in such places. For such soils earth resistance is between 5 to 8 ohms.

Pipe earthing