Edward L.

Owen

There are several methods available to ground the neutrals of power systems. One of these methods, high-resistance grounding, was first applied in 1936 to solve a safety problem associated with operating large portable equipments used in open-pit mines. The problem encountered was to avoid exposing mine personnel to dangerous stray electric potentials. It was brought sharply into focus in 1935 when an operator was electrocuted as he tried to board an electric shovel. L.M. Frazee, an electrical engineer at Oliver Iron Mining Company, recounted the circumstances surrounding the tragedy and resolution of the technical issues confronted [l]. Frazees story is of particular historic interest because it was published at the time of the events and is a firsthand account by a principal. Various other accounts of developments in safety grounding of mining equipment have been passed along from one generation of engineer to the next. Reports like Frazees are of greater value to historians working in the field than stories that are either undocumented or not firsthand. As a young man coming to Schenectady 30 years ago, I quickly became aware of the issues and practices surrounding safety grounding of large portable machines in mining operations. (IEC uses the term mobile, rather thanportable.) These practices were documented in the Industrial Power Systems Data Book {2). When visiting customers facilities, I observed more experienced engineers such as Milan Neslin always boarded an excavator by jumping on board. H e would explain that he did not want to have one foot in a mud puddle and the other on the cat. Clearly, he was concerned about the possibility of being shocked. Sometimes, around the lunch table, I also heard tales of the early days in mining from other senior engineers, such as Walt Schwedes, Bill McDonald, Dave Hamil-

ton, and others. In nearly all cases, these accounts were second- or third-hand. One such grisly tale involved chaining a mule behind the shovel to detect stray voltage. As the story went, if the mule was standing, it was safe to board the shovel. I was duly impressed. While such yarns are certainly colorful and may contain some kernel of truth, they are probably embellished. After all, Northern Minnesota and Lake Superior are a land of tall tales and legendary figures. How many of us have been entertained by Gordon Lightfoot as he sings about the Edmund Fitzgerald? Fig. 1 is reprinted from Frazees article in 1940. It shows a loader-size shovel, one that scoops ore from the bank in front of it and dumps it in a nearby ore car. The ore car is part of a train pulled around the mining area by a steam-powered locornotive. Steel rails on which the train rides are just barely visible in the front right foreground of the photograph.

The photograph includes a most amazing wme. Careful inspection shows a man sta.nding next to the shovel with his hand clearly resting on one of the treads or cats supporting the shovel. Considering that the article from which this photograph is taken was inspired by a fatal accident, the man must have had supreme confidence in the integrity ofhis new safety grounding system. The article tells how a shovel operator was electrocuted: He stood on the ground and grasped the metal ladder simultaneously with the occurrence of a failure in the trailing ca.ble of that shovel El]. W e can see a metal ladder at the back of the machine house on the shovel, like the one the operator was trying to mount. Investigation showed an open circuit in the ground conductor of the trailing cable, leaving the excavator frame ungrounded but coupled to the phase conductors by a variety of stray impedances. The pose in the photograph seems more than just coincidental, since GE photographers

Fig. I . Fiue-cubic-yard electric power shovel. (Source: GE Review)

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ees at some mining companies were taught always to board mining equipment by jumping on board. It was explained that this avoided any possibility of allowing the person to span from ground to shovel frame. In 1748, Walt Schwedes and Dave Stoetzel wrote an article describing the latest developments in open-pit mining distribution practices [5]. It included a photograph of a large power dragline used in the coal fields around Indiana and Illinois. Fig. 2 is reprinted from that article. Safety grounding practices, which began in the open-pit iron mines of Minnesota during 1936, migrated to open-pit coal mining around Terre Haute within 10 years.

The Problem
Fig. 2. Twenty-Jive-cubic-yard--yardpower drugline. (Source: A I E E Trans.) lavge
were trained to watch for and avoid any violations of safe practices. Twenty years later, many engineers in the mining industry carefully avoided any action or motion that could possibly result in them spanning from ground to shovel frame with their bodies. them as special and treat them differently from other industrial facilities. The nature of mining operations makes it difficult to establish reliable grounding connections for that portion of the electrical system extending into the pit or toward the face of underground operations. The excavators are continually digging up the very ground upon which they sit. Any ground rod that might be driven near the shovel or dragline would only be dug-up in due course and the ground connection thereby destroyed. Therefore, it is necessary for trailing cables to include ground conductors in addition to phase conductors. Power shovels originated around 1875. Motive power was in the form of steam and they were called steam-shovels. There exists a famous picture of President Teddy Roosevelt sitting at the controls of a steam-shovel during construction of the Panama Canal. Railroads, bridges, big-steel, and power shovels were developments that began in the late 17th and early 20th centuries. In 1902, Alexander Backus equipped a power shovel with electric drives for the machine motions (hoist and crowd) {4]. However, it was not until 1920 that electric shovels really began to take root. Fairly quickly after electric shovels came into use, it was recognized that mining equipment furnished with electricity by trailing cable could administer an electrical shock to unwary personnel. EmployThe primary consideration with respect to electrical safety in open-pit mining is the prevention of electrical shock to mine personnel working about the electric shovels and other electric equipment served by trailing cables. The greatest hazard to personnel arises from potential differences between equipment frames and ground. An electrical failure within the cable connections, main motor winding, or auxiliary transformer can produce a connection between one of the power wires and the shovel itself. The frame of the shovel is then elevated to the potential of the power conductor at the location of the fault. In 1936, shovels were served by trail cable at 4,000 volts, threephase, 60 Hz power. The transformers were wye-connected, each delivering 2,300 volts to the system.

gro~n~
Previous issues of Industry Applications magazine contain the start of a series of history articles on power system ground3. ing {] This article continues the series. Engineers have been struggling over whether to ground power systems since 1882, when Edison built Pearl Street Station in New York City. Edison applied the principle of ungrounded systems t o his d c systems from t h e beginning. Thomson used the solidly grounded system in 1885 to overcome a safety issue associated with ac systems. Today, grounding of most land-based power distribution circuits is mandated by codes and regulations. In 1970 the federal office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created, and the previously existing U.S. National Electrical Code (NEC) was modified in 1971 to make power system grounding mandatory in most instances. There were some notable exceptions, such as hospital operating rooms and mining facilities. Mining plants have unique problems that caused federal regulators to consider
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The Solution
The neutral was connected to ground by a trolley-bus (cast-iron grid) type of resistor, selected for its robust mechanical construction. The ground location was identified as safety ground to distinguish it from the main sub-station ground. The resistor had a resistance value of 40 ohms and was rated to carry continuously the current from 2,300 volts. The maximum current that could return t o t h e transformer neutral through the resistor was approximately 55 amperes. A ground current of 5 5 amperes flowing through a ground return path resistance limited to a maximum of 2 ohms resulted in a maximum voltage to which personnel could be exposed to 110 volts. One hundred volts

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was then and still is considered the maximum voltage to which human subjects should be exposed to avoid possible electrocution. Later, Westinghouse introduced an innovation of its own, using a combination of 25 amperes and 4 ohms to obtain the same 100-volt maximum exposure for mine personnel. These two combinations of current and resistance became industry standards, GE promoted the use of 50 amperes with 2 ohms and Westinghouse advocated 25 amperes with 4 ohms. Both combinations result in the same maximum exposure of 100 volts to mine personnel. Both practices allowed use of commercially available protective relays that were proven through years of experience.

Fig. 3. Trail cable. (Source: GE Review)

The solution required the use of trailing cables that included both power conductors to convey power on board and ground conductors to connect the excavator frame to the safety ground. Separate ground wires outside the trail cables were not used for a number of reasons. They entail handling another conductor in addition to the trail cable. To avoid extra cables and connections, the ground conductors were incorporated within the trail cable. The ground conductors were each laid in the side interstices of the cable. Fig. 3 is reprinted from the article by Frazee 111. One unanticipated benefit of high-resistance grounding was a substantial reduction in the amount of damage to the cable when a cable fault occurred. Trail cables are inherently subject to deterioration and mechanical damage. Before use of safety grounding, a cable failure was usually accompanied by substantial burning of the cable. Miners had only to look out across the pit and locate the smoke to know where the fault had occurred. After adopting safety grounding, it was much harder to locate the fault because damage had been greatly reduced. This lesson was not lost on others. It carried over into other applications of high-resistance grounding

concepts that will be addressed in later articles in rhis series. An additional innovation that made safety grounding practical was the development and use of high-voltage cable couplers. These couplers made it possible to quickly disconnect and reconnect various portable equipments at 4 kV, similar to the convenience of plugging and unplugging household appliances from 120/240 volt circuits. It was necessary to ensure the power circuit was de-energized before disconnecting any of its power circuit contacts. This was accomplished by using a foreshortened blade in the coupler to interrupt the Ground Continuity Check (GCC) circuit before the power circuit became disconnected. Loss of ground continuity caused feeder breakers to open, disconnecting power prior to separating the contacts of the power circuit. Fig. 4 is reprinted from the article by Schwedes { 5 ] . It shows a portable switchhouse with 4 kV couplers. Factors determining the severity of shock hazard have been analyzed and published on several occasions. The relative importance of various factors that affect the shock-hazard problem can be seen in Figs. 5 and 6. These figures are
_
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Fig. 4. Povtable switchhouse. (Source: A I E E Trans.1

reprinted from the Industrial Power Sys-terns Dutu Book [2]. The physical layout is shown in Fig. 5 . An equivalent electrical circuit is shown in Fig. 6. T h e portable-machine frame-toground resistance (direct contacts of supports with earth) is very indefinite. Even under favorable circumstances, the ground re'jistance will not be low, and it may be 100 ohms or more on rock formations. The g.round-fault current is determined by the power-supply voltage act-.

__ ____
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Z, I Equkalenr electric
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of circuit only

to wnich

may be subjected
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Fig. 5. Fuitors in shock hazard-physical

aspects. (Source: IPSDB)

Fig. 6. Factors in shock hazardLeguiwulent circuit. (Source: IPSDB)

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ing on the fault-circuit impedance. The normal power system impedance composed of substation-cransformer, transmission-line, and trailing cable impedances are of necessity low. A low value of ground current can be attained by introducing the neutral grounding impedance. Ifthe current is made too low compared to normal line current, troublesome relay problems will result. That is the balance to be struck by the engineer, a low value of ground-fault current and reliable protective relay operation. In 1960, the concepts of high-resistance grounding for large portable machines had been reduced to practice for several years and were in use at several mines around the world. However, use was at the discretion of mine operators and not all locations followed safe practices, even though they were available. Perhaps it was for this reason that Milan and others always jumped on-board ex-

cavators-they were not assured that safe practices were being employed.

Subsequent Developments
Today, safety-grounding of all mine distribution circuits is mandated by codes and regulations. In 1969 the Coal Mine Safety Act was created and enforcement authority vested in the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM). In the time period around 1970, the USBM took what had beenvoluntary standards and began converting to mandatory standards. Enforcement authority was removed from USBM in 1971 and vested in the Mine Enforcement Safety Administration (MESA), later the Mine Safety 81 Health Administration (MSHA), which is a division of the U.S. Department of Labor. Enforcement authority for MSHA is created by Title 30 of the Code of the Federal Register (CFR). The USBM ceased to exist earlier this year, and some of their programs were transferred to other U S . government agencies. In 1987, the IEC issued its own standards relating to safety grounding of mobile equipment in mining applications [9}. IEC standards differ from U.S. standards in several important areas. The most important area relates to requirements for GCC provisions. This discussion will be continued in the next issue, and will focus on modern high-resistance grounding systems. (Part 111 - to be continued)

is dedicated to the memory of their service to the profession. Photographs are reprinted with permission. Sources are as indicated. This article was suggested by R.L. Nailen. The author wishes to acknowledge considerable help from many persons, b u t in particular J.R. Dunki-Jacobs, F.J. Shields, and K. Benoit. Any errors or omissions lie strictly with the author.

For More Information

[l] L.M. Frazee, "Fundamental Principles of Elec-

Acknowledgment
Walt Schwedes, Dave Stoetzel, Frank Peak, and Dave Hamilton pioneered many concepts of safety grounding practice described in this article. The article

trical Safety for Open-pit Iron Mines," GE Review, vol. 43, no. 6, June 1940, pp. 230-16. I21 Industrial Power Systems Dutd Book, section .35, "Grounding Large Portable Machinery for Safety," General Electric Company, Schenectady, N.Y., 1952. (Out ofprint; copy available for inspection at Hall of History, Schenectady, N.Y.) [ 3 ] E.L. Owen, "Power System Grounding-Part I: A Less Shocking Experience," IEEE Ind. Appl. Muguzine, vol. 2, no. 3 UanuaryiFebruary 1996),pp. 71-74. [4] P.S. Stevens, "Evolution ofward-Leonard Control for Shovels and Draglines," A I E E Trans., vol. 67, Part 11, 1948, pp. 1491-97. 151 W.H. Schwedes and D. Stoetzel, "Electric Equipment for Power Shovels and Draglines," A I E E Tvuns., vol. 67, Part 11, 1948, pp, 1498507. [GI D. Stoetzel et al., "Grounding in Strip Mines" (GET-248 11, General Electric Company, Schenecrady, N.Y., 1952. (Out of print; copy available for inspection at Iron World, Hibbing, Minn.) 171D.E. Hamilton, "A Review of Grounding Practices for Mine Power Systems," AIEE confere n c e p a p e r , A I E E East C e n t r a l a n d Allegheny-Ohio Valley District Meeting, April 13, 1960, Charleston, W.Va. (Out of print; copy available for inspection at Hall of History, Schenectady, N.Y.) 181 "Historical Document," Open Pit Mining Association, Electrical Division, McMurray, Pa., 1994. 191 IEC 62 1, Electrical Installutionr f i r Outdoor Site.! Under Hea y Conditions (Including Open-cast Mines C Quarries), IEC, Geneva, 1987.

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