Why grounding is used?

Terminology
In Britain, people have 'earth' and in Northern America they have 'ground'. They are
exactly the same thing, only different terms are used in different countries.
Purposes of Grounding
Grounding system has three main purposes:
1.Over voltage protection
Lightning, line surges or unintentional contact with higher voltage lines can cause
dangerouslyhigh voltages to the electrical distribution system wires. Grounding provides
an alternative patharound the electrical system of your home or workplace minimizes
damage from such occurrences.
2. Voltage stabilization
There are many sources of electricity. Every transformer can be considered a separate
source. Ifthere were not a common reference point for all these voltage sources it would
be extremelydifficult to calculate their relationships to each other. The earth is the most
omnipresentconductive surface, and so it was adopted in the very beginnings of
electrical distribution systemsas a nearly universal standard for all electric systems.
3.Current path in order to facilitate the operation of over current devices
This purpose of grounding is the most important one to understand. Grounding system
provides
certain level of safety to humans and property in case of equipment damages.
Grounding operation in electrical distribution network
The main reason why grounding is used in electrical distribution network is the safety:
when allmetallic parts in electrical equipments are grounded then if the insulation inside
the equipmentsfails there are no dangerous voltages present in the equipment case.
Then the live wire touchesthe grounded case then the circuit is effectively shorted and
fuse will immediately blow. When thefuse is blown then the dangerous voltages are
away.
The safety is the primary function of grounding. Grounding systems are designed so
that they doprovide the necessary safety functions. Grounding also has other functions
in some applicationsbut the safety should not be compromised in any case. Grounding
is quite often used to providecommon ground reference potential for all equipments but
the existing building groundingsystems might not provide good enough ground potential
for all equipments which might lead toground potential difference and ground loop
problems which are common problems in computernetworks and audio/video systems.
Why grounding is so important?
Earthing of electrical systems is required for a number of reasons, principally to ensure
the safetyof people near the system and to prevent damage to the system itself in the
event of a fault. Thefunction of the protective conductor, or earth, is to provide a low
resistance path for fault currentso that the circuit protective devices operate rapidly to
disconnect the supply.
The NEC, National Electrical Code defines a ground as: "a conducting connection,
whetherintentional or accidental between an electrical circuit or equipment and the

earth, or to someconducting body that serves in place of the earth." When talking about
grounding it is actually twodifferent subjects, earth grounding and equipment grounding.
Earth grounding is an intentionalconnection from a circuit conductor usually the neutral
to a ground electrode placed in the earth.Equipment grounding is to ensure that
operating equipment within a structure is properlygrounded. These two grounding
systems are required to be kept separate except for a connectionbetween the two
systems to prevent differences in potential from a possible flashover from alightning
strike. The purpose of a ground besides the protection of people plants and equipment
isto provide a safe path for the dissipation of Fault Currents, Lightning Strikes, Static
Discharges,EMI and RFI signals and Interference.
Improper grounding can create a lethal hazard. Correct grounding is essential for
correctoperation and safety of electrical equipments. Grounding can solve many
problems, but it canalso cause new ones. One of the most common problems is called
"ground loop".
Why grounding without problems is do difficult?
Virtually all data and broadcast construction projects run into problems of grounding.
Theseproblems occur primarily because there is a conflict between issues of safety
(grounding toprevent electrical shock) and electronic noise reduction (using "ground" as
an electronic "dump"for noise and interference.) These two uses are often not
compatible and can sometimes be indirect conflict with one another. The ultimate
purpose of good grounding scheme is hepreservation and adherence to the safety
aspects while obtaining the maximum noise reductionpossible. That is not usually an
easy task to do.