X International Symposium on
Lightning Protection
9th-13th November, 2009 – Curitiba, Brazil
THE RELEVANCE OF COMPUTING A THIRD LAYER IN A
HORIZONTAL STRATIFIED SOIL
Lívia M. Raggi, Silverio Visacro
LRC - Lightning Research Center - Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
liviaraggi@yahoo.com.br - visacro@cpdee.ufmg.br
Abstract - This paper presents a study about the relevance
of computing a third layer in a horizontal stratified soil. The
analyses is based on finding an equivalent two-layer model
that satisfactory represents soils originally modelled from
measurements as three-layer ones. The two-layer model has
a very simple implementation and converges rapidly, when
compared with other multilayer models. The investigated
equivalence has relevant practical interest as it allows
diminishing the computational time required to assess the
performance of large grounding-electrode arrangements
during the grid design procedure.
1 INTRODUCTION
The design of grounding grids is basically defined to
ensure safety conditions during short-circuit events. The
grid design considers the proper position of electrodes to
ensure a smooth distribution of the electrical potentials
developed on the soil surface during the flow of short-
circuit currents, assuming that all the electrodes have the
same electrical potential during the flow of low-frequency
currents [1].
The fundamental parameters that govern the design are
the grounding resistance and the distribution of electric
potentials developed on the soil surface.
The first step in any procedure related to such design
consists in obtaining a reliable representation for the soil.
Basically this representation is derived from the results of
measurements corresponding to the application of the
Frank Wenner Method [2]. According to this traditional
method, four short rods are placed at the soil spaced a
meters apart and reaching the same depth b. The ratio of
the voltage measured between the two internal rods to the
current injected into the soil by the two external rods
provide a Resistance RF , whose value is proportional to
the soil resistivity by the Frank Wenner constant KF (ρ =
KF RF), being this constant given by 2πa. for a>>b.
Though this method was developed to determine the
resistivity of a homogeneous semi-infinite medium, it has
been applied using different values of space a between
rods to identify horizontally stratified soils. This kind of
application results in curves similar to the ones presented
in Fig 1.
600
500
400
ρa(Ωm)
300
200
3 layers (ρ1>ρ2<ρ3)
100 2 layers (ρ1>ρ2)
1 layer
0
2 4 8 16 32 64
a (m)
Fig. 1 –ρaxa curves (ρa : resistiviy as a function of the space a
between rods, ρ1, ρ2, ρ3: ground resistivity of layers 1, 2 ,3)
From curves ρaxa such as the ones above, models of soils
are derived, most frequently the homogeneous, two- and
three-layer stratified soils.
The experience has shown that only in some cases the soil
is adequately represented as a semi-infinite homogeneous
medium. In most situations this representation requires a
two-layer-soil-stratification model and, less frequently, a
three-layer representation is required. In rare cases, to
match the experimental ρaxa curves models with four soil
layers are required.
It is prudent to consider that the use of the measurements
derived from the application of Frank Wenner Method as
input to model earth resistivity has some intrinsic
limitations, including uncertainties of measurements that
affect significantly the reliability and the accuracy of
developed stratified models. Also, as a matter of fact, in
the design of grounding grids the behaviour of the
parameters of interest, notably the grounding resistance
and the potential distribution on the soil surface,
expresses the average effect of the whole current
distributed to the soil through electrodes, which are not
critically affected by variations of resistivity in the
deepest layers of soil.
On the other hand, the increase in the number of layers
raises significantly the processing time of the
computational procedures used to design real grids.
All the aspects mentioned above denotes a practical
interest and the reasonability to achieve a simplified
representation of soil that allows a good balance between
the accuracy of the calculation in design procedures and
their time consumption. The authors believe this balance
might be achieved by a two-layer representation for the
soil and that, considering the mentioned limitations of the
modelling, this representation is more consistent than
more detailed representations.
The literature provides a traditional procedure to reduce a
three-layer soil representation into two-layer one, based
only on averaging the values of second and high order
layer, eventually attributing a weight to them related to
layer width. In most cases this rough procedure yields
significant errors.
This picture motivated the authors to investigate some
simplified procedures to produce consistent two-layer
representations of soils originally modelled from
measurements as three-layer ones. This work reports
some results developed to find equivalent models as
indicated in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 – Equivalent soil-stratification models. (ρ1, ρ2, ρ3, ρ2eq:
ground resistivity of layers 1, 2 ,3 and 2eq; H1, H2: length of
layers 1 and 2)
2 DEVELOPMENTS
2.1 Developed Approach
A heuristic approach was developed to find a simplified
algorithm to derive a two-layer stratified soil model from
a given three-layer model.
Particularly, in this approach the values of ρ1 and H1 of
the three layers model are preserved and the value of ρ2eq
that replaces layers 2 and 3 of that model is determined.
Based on their experience the authors proposed simplified
expressions to find ρ2eq The quality of the proposed
solutions was verified by matching the main design-
parameters of defined grid arrangements found for both
representations the original three-layer and the equivalent
two-layer model, particularly the grid ground resistance
and the distribution of potentials on the soil surface
caused by current injected into the soil through
electrodes.
The method of the complex images described in reference
[3] was used to calculate the grounding resistance and the
potential on the soil surface generated by both models the
three- and the two-layer-stratified soils.
2.2 Expression proposed for concentrated electrodes
The evaluations developed in this work shown that for
ground systems consisting of short single electrodes, for
example a 4m horizontal electrode, the value ρ02eq from
expression (1) provides a consistent estimate for ρ2eq,
resulting on maximum errors of the design parameters
smaller than 3 %.
(ρ2 ⋅ H 2 + ρ3 ⋅ H 1 )
ρ20eq = (1)
k ⋅ (H 1 + H 2 )
Where k is given by:
(ρ 2 − ρ1 ) + (ρ2 − ρ3 )
k= ⋅ 0,3 + 1 (2)
ρ2 − ρ1 + ρ 2 − ρ3
2.3 Algorithm proposed for large grids
Long electrodes, including complex arrangements,
require extending the modelling process to find ρ2eq in
order to take into account the grounding-system
dimension in addition to the parameters of the original
three-layer-soil model.
In this case the value of ρ02eq provided by expression (1) is
only an initial value within an interactive procedure to
determine the resistivity of the equivalent second layer
ρ2eq. This initial value is varied until the smallest
estimated error of the grounding-design parameter is
found in certain defined conditions, following the
procedure described below.
First, the initial value ρ02eq given by expression (1) is
incremented and decremented by N 3%-step variations, to
define a group of 2N+1 possible values for ρi2eq:
ρ 2i eq = (1 + 0,03 ⋅ i ) ⋅ ρ 20eq , − N < i < N (3)
Then a set of p positions are defined corresponding to the
points where the potential rise promoted by the current
injected into the soil by a punctual current source placed
at soil surface will be evaluated and compared
considering both conditions the three- and two-layer-soil
stratification. The position of the current source qs is
indicated at the soil-air interface at the soil side in Fig. 3
along with the points p1 to pP , where the electric potential
is calculated.
The number of points P is defined according to the value
of the first layer depth H and of the largest linear
dimension of the grid L, Fig.3. Such points are placed at
the horizontal plane that contains the deepest point of the
electrodes h (supposed to be entirely contained in the first
layer) and at least five positions are considered at this
plane along the L orientation, spaced 0.25 L, from the
source position (points: h,0; h,0.25L; h,0.5L; h,0.75L;
h,L).
The position of the points at the depth h was chosen
because the critical errors along the electrodes are found
there. Also, decreasing the displacement to values shorter
than 0.25 L would increase the accuracy of the process.
3 RESULTS
The application of this heuristic approach to a large
number of general electrode arrangements showed quite
good results. This section illustrates some of such cases
considering two different electrode arrangements buried
in both equivalent models, two- and three-stratified soils,
considering the injection of a low frequency current. In
each case, the ground resistance and the potential
distribution over the soil were calculated employing the
complex image method and, then, compared. To perform
these evaluations, a computational tool developed by the
LRC research group and based on a constant potential
approach for electrodes was used in the calculations [6].
3.1 Example 1
The first example consists of a 10x10m grid immersed 0.4
deep in the modelled soils, illustrated by Fig. 4. The
parallel conductors are spaced 2m and the electrodes
diameter is 0.005m. The diagonal line crossing the grid in
Fig. 4 defines the points along the soil surface where
potentials are calculated.

Fig. 3 – Analysed points.

Fig. 4 – Example 1: 10x10m grid.
Once these points are defined, the potentials generated by
the current source at points p1, p2, …pP, are calculated and The values of L and h were respectively 10 m and 0.4m
compared for the 2N+1 possible values of ρi2eq, and the points were spaced 0.25L. Table 1 summarizes
considering both conditions the three- and two-layer-soil some of the results of sensitivity analyses performed to
stratification (V2eq(pj) and V3(pj)), using the complex calculate different soil stratification conditions. It
image method. indicates the equivalent two-layer-soil solution for each
stratification condition.
The quadratic error εi2 defined by expression (4) below is
calculated. The value of ρi2eq corresponding to the Table 1: equivalent models
smallest value of εi2 is assumed as the best estimate of ρ2eq
for the equivalent two-layer-soil model. Case ρ1 ρ2 ρ3 H1 H2 ρ2eq
(Ωm) (Ωm) (Ωm) (m) (m) (Ωm)
P
( ) ( )2
 V3 p j − V2eq p j 
1 500 2500 1000 2.5 5 1480
i
ε2 = ∑ 

j =1 
V 3( )
p j



(4) 2
3
500
500
2500
100
7500
250
2.5
2.5
5
5
5417
162
4 500 100 50 2.5 5 70
This procedure has a very simple implementation and 5 500 2500 1000 5 10 1600
converges quite fast, when compared with other 6 500 2500 7500 5 10 5333
procedures required by multilayer models. 7 500 100 250 5 10 144
8 500 100 50 5 10 82
The corresponding ground resistances were calculated. 1600
The error between the values obtained using each model 1400
is given by ∆R and the values are displayed in Table 2, 1200
where: 1000

ρa (Ωm)
3 layers
800

∆R(%) =
(R3 − R2eq ) ⋅100 (5)
600
2 layers

400
R3
200
0
Table 2: ground resistances 0 10 20 a (m) 30 40 50

Case R3 R2eq ∆R
Fig. 6 – Example 1: ρaxa curve
(Ω) (Ω) (%)
1 37.92 37.36 1.48 3.2 Example 2
2 66.39 66.76 -0.56
3 13.53 13.9 -2.73 The second example consists of a 20x20m grid, with
4 11.37 11.23 1.23 eight 2m-long vertical rods distributed along the grid
5 perimeter (Fig 7). The parallel conductors are spaced by
32.32 32.33 -0.03
4m and the electrodes diameter is 0.005m. It’s simulated
6 47.55 47.96 -0.86 the injection of a 1kA current.
7 16.1 16.22 -0.75 4m
8 14.97 14.96 0.07
4m
The errors are reduced, lower than 3% and this is
considered a quite good result in terms of grounding
applications. 20m

Fig. 5 illustrates a further result generated by the

indicated approach, depicting the distribution of the
potential rise at the soil surface along the diagonal,
considering the injection of a 1kA low-frequency current
20m
at the grid in the conditions defined by the first case of
Table 1, (ρ1 = 500Ωm, ρ2 = 2500 Ωm, ρ3 = Fig. 7 – Example 2: 20x20m grid plus 8 rods.
1000Ωm, H1 = 2.5m, H2= 5m, ρ2eq = 1480Ωm).
Tables 3 and 4 show respectively the equivalent models
and the errors (in terms of grounding resistances) found
40
38 for the same cases considered. Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 describe
36 potential rise at soil surface and ρaxa curves, considering
the seventh case of Table 3 (ρ1 = 500Ωm, ρ2 = 100Ωm, ρ3
Potential (kV)

34
32 = 250 Ωm, H1 = 5m, H2= 10m, ρ2eq = 162Ωm).
30 3 layers
28 2 layers Table 3: equivalent models
26
24 Case ρ1 ρ2 ρ3 H1 H2 ρ2eq
22 (Ωm) (Ωm) (Ωm) (m) (m) (Ωm)
20
1 500 2500 1000 2.5 5 1360
0 5 (m ) 10 15
2 500 2500 7500 2.5 5 5833
3 500 100 250 2.5 5 174
Fig. 5 – Example 1: Potential rise 4 500 100 50 2.5 5 62
5 500 2500 1000 5 10 1480
Fig. 6 depicts the ρaxa curves that would be obtained from
6 500 2500 7500 5 10 5667
measurements by the application of the Wenner Method,
7 500 100 250 5 10 162
for both models. In this figure, ρa is the apparent
resistivity for the rods spaced a. 8 500 100 50 5 10 72
 Table 4: ground resistances 4 CONCLUSION

Case R3 R2eq ∆R The main conclusion of this work is that it is possible to

(Ω) (Ω) (%) develop a consistent two-layer representation of soils that
1 21.27 20.90 1.74 were originally modelled as three-layer stratified soils.
2 47.2 47.52 -0.68
3 6.25 6.34 -1.44 Furthermore, a simplified procedure that can be easily
implemented to develop such two-layer equivalent model
4 4.51 4.4 2.44 from the three layer representation is proposed in the
5 19.07 18.87 1.05 paper.
6 33.8 34.35 -1.63
7 7.09 7.25 -2.26 These results are considered of practical interest since
8 6.04 5.97 1.16 they allow diminishing the computational time required to
assess the performance of large grounding-electrode
arrangements during the grid design procedure.
8
7
The next step in this investigation is to determine this
6
equivalent two-layer representation directly from the ρaxa
Potential (kV)

5
curves obtained from measurements performed by the
4
3 layers application of the Frank Wenner Method.
3
2 layers
2 5 REFERENCES
1
0 [1] S. Visacro, Low frequency grounding resistance and
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 lightning protection, Chapt 8 - Lightning Protection book,
(m)
edited by Vernon Cooray, Elsevier - to be published 2009.
[2] S. Visacro, Grounding and Earthing: Basic Concepts,
Fig. 8 – Example 2: Potential rise Measurements and Instrumentation, Grounding Strategies
(in Portuguese), 2nd ed. São Paulo, Brazil: ArtLiber Edit.,
2002, pp. 1–159.
600
[3] Y. L. Chow, J. J. Yang, K. D. Srivastava, "Complex Images
500 of a Ground Electrode in Layered Soils", J. of Applied
3 layers
400 2 layers
Physics, vol. 71, n. 15, pp. 569-574, Jan 1992.
[4] P. Min-fang, Y. Dong-jiang, T. Xiang-bo, H. Yi-gang,
ρa (Ωm)

300
"Calculation of a Grounding Grid in Multi-layer Medium",
200 International Conference on Robotics, Intelligent Systems
100
and Signal Processing, pp.1317-1321, Changsha, China,
Oct. 2003.
0 [5] G. Kindermann and J. M. Campagnolo, Aterramento
0 20 40 60 80 100
a (m) Elétrico, Florianópolis, Author’s Edition, 2002.
[6] S. Visacro, Grounding: Practices and Design (in
Fig. 9 – Example 2: ρaxa curve Portuguese), book to be published by ArtLiber Edit., São
Paulo, Brazil,.
Various electrodes arrangements and soil configurations
were simulated. The difference between ground resistance
and potential rise on soil surface for both models are
much lower than 4%, reaching this limit in the critical
cases.