SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

Effective Length Estimation of Vertical

Grounding Electrodes

Nguyen Nhat Nam

Phan Tran Tin

Ho Chi Minh city University of Technology, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

Le Quoc Viet
Binh Duong Electric Power Company, Binh Duong province, Vietnam
Vu Phan Tu
Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam
(Manuscript Received on , 2015, Manuscript Revised , 2015)

ABSTRACT:
In this paper, a model of nonuniform
transmission line is applied to estimate
the effective length of vertical grounding
electrodes under lightning strikes. The
estimated results in some typical cases
are then validated and compared with

the ones computed of other researchers.

The estimation is then conducted for two
standard lightning current waveforms in
IEC 62305-1. The obtained results
provide a useful basis for practical
design
of
grounding
systems.

Keywords: effective length, grounding electrode, lightning protection, nonuniform

transmission line.

1. INTRODUCTION
Grounding system is generally a network of
horizontal and vertical electrodes buried under the
ground. Its function is to disperse lightning
currents and fault ones quickly into surrounding
soil. Hence, this system is one of the most
important part in lightning protection. In case a
lightning protection system is installed in a small
area, simple vertical grounding electrodes can be
used. In areas with high resistivity of soil, these
grounding rods can even be longer than 20 m.
In lightning current dissipation, when the
length of a grounding electrode increases beyond
an critical limitation, the maximum ground
potential rise (GPR) does not decrease [1]. This
limitation, which is named effective length, is a
very important quantity for the lightning transient
analysis of grounding systems. From a

comprehensive study about the transient

behaviour of grounding systems summarized by
Sune in [2], many researches have been conducted
to estimate the effective length of grounding
electrodes. B. R. Gupta and B. Thapar first
proposed an empirical formula of the grounding
effective length based on the electric circuit
approach [3]. Jinliang He, et al. used transmission
line model including soil ionization effects to
estimate the effective length of horizontal
grounding wires [4]. Leonid Grcev developed a
full wave electromagnetic field model to improve
the accuracy for the effective length estimation of
grounding electrodes [5].
In this paper, a nonuniform transmission line
which was developed by Y. Liu in [6] is used to
estimate the effective length of vertical grounding

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electrodes. Besides, the soil ionization is
neglected in this study because it is a very
complex phenomenon including hysteresis and
surface sparking effects [7]. The effective length
estimation is then validated by comparison with
the results from other researchers. Finally, this
estimation is conducted for
two standard
waveform lightning currents defined in [8].

Table 1. Parameters of the lightning current

waveform proposed in IEC62305-1
First stroke current

Subsequence stroke
current

LPL I: 200

LPL I: 50

LPL II: 150

LPL II: 37.5

LPL III-IV: 100

LPL III-IV: 25

0.930

0.993

1(s)

19

0.454

2(s)

485

143

10

10

Imax
(kA)

2. FUNDAMENTAL BACKGROUND
2.1 Nonuniform transmission line model
In the nonuniform transmission line model
proposed in [6], the distribution equations of
voltage v(x,t) and current i(x,t) on a grounding
electrode are displayed as (1) and (2).

v x, t
i x, t
rei x, t L x, t
x
t

*LPL: Lightning Protection Level

(1)

i x, t
v x, t
(2)
G x, t v x, t C x, t
x
t

In the above equations, re, L(x,t), G(x,t) and

C(x,t) are the per-unit length resistance,
inductance, conductance and capacitance of the
electrode, respectively. It is noted that the last
three parameters are considered as functions of
position along the electrode x and time t.
The finite difference time domain (FDTD)
method is used in this model. The detailed
procedure of this numerical method to calculate
the voltage and current along the electrode is
presented in [6].

2.3 Basic definitions for transient analysis of

grounding electrodes
For the lightning transient behaviour of
grounding electrodes, it is necessary to remind
readers some important definitions in [5].
Firstly, in low frequency range, the behavior
of a grounding electrode is characterized by the
low frequency resistance as follows

RLF

V
, where V is the voltage difference
I

between the feed point on the electrode and the

remote neutral point; I is the injected current. This
resistance value of a vertical grounding electrode
with radius a and length l buried in a soil with

2.2 Lightning current waveform

resistivity can be estimated using the following

The function displayed in (3) is shown being

suitable to describe a realistic lightning current
effectively by F. Heidler in [9].

formula [5].

I max t / 1
exp(t / 2 )
k 1 t / 1 n

RLF

i(t )

(3)

The above equation is accepted by IEC for

the first and the subsequent short stroke currents
in [8]. Its parameters, which are fixed in
IEC62305-1, are summarized in Table 1.

4l
ln 1
2 l a

(4)

Secondly, for the impulse characteristics of a

grounding electrode, the impulse impedance Z and
the impulse coefficient A are considered.

V peak

(5)

I peak

where Vpeak is the peak value of the electric

potential at the injected point in reference to the
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

remote neutral point and Ipeak is the peak value of
the impulse current fed into the electrode.

Z
RLF

(6)

Finally, the effective length of a grounding

electrode in a specific circumstance of lightning
current and soil is determined as the maximum
length when the impulse coefficient is equal to 1.
3. VERIFICATION
OF
THE
NONUNIFORM TRANSMISSION LINE
MODEL
In this section, the reliability of the applied
model is examined by comparing its result with
the experimental one. For the lightning transient
problem of grounding systems, experiments are
very difficult and expensive. Therefore, the
number of experiments in this field is very rare.
Fortunately, there is a very important one which
was introduced in [10]. In this experiment, an
impulse current of which the waveform is similar
to a typical subsequent stroke was injected into a
15 m long horizontal grounding electrode buried
at 0.6 m under ground in soil with resistivity of 70
m and relative permittivity of 15. The electrode
is a 116 mm2 copper wire. The measured peak
values of the impulse current and of the impulse
voltage at the injected point are 35 A and 660 V,
respectively [10]. Hence, the impulse impedance
of 18.857 can be calculated from this
measurement.
In our simulation, the current waveform in (3)
is used to reproduce the experimental current with
1=0.14 s, 2=4.5 s and n=2. The impulse
current and the impulse voltage at the injected
point are presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Impulse current and impulse voltage from the

simulation

The peak value of the impulse voltage in

Figure 1 is 631. 788 V. As a result, the simulation
impulse impedance of 18.051 is obtained with
the difference of 4.2% in reference to the
measured impedance. Based on this comparison,
it is observed that the computation results from
the model are in good agreement with the
experimental ones.
4. THE
EFFECTIVE
LENGTH
OF
VERTICAL GROUNDING ELECTRODE
4.1 Validating comparison
In this section, the effective length estimation
of vertical grounding electrodes is conducted for
two impulse currents used in [5]. The waveforms
of these currents are displayed in Figure 2. The
effective lengths of vertical grounding electrodes
for four typical values of soil resistivity are
presented and compared with the estimated ones
from [5, 11] in Table 2. It is observed that these
results are consistent to one another.

Figure 2. First and subsequent short stroke currents in

[5]

Table 2. Effective length of vertical grounding

electrodes for two impulse currents in [5]
Effective length (m)

First stroke current

(m)

Subsequence stroke
current

10

6.9

7.4

4.6

2.1

1.3

3.6

100

22.2

23.8

12.3

7.4

7.4

7.6

500

49.3

32.0

31.0

17.3

18.1

16.2

1000

69.6

32.9

49.2

25.5

23.7

24

: soil resistivity
a: from nonuniform transmission line model in this study
b: from electromagnetic field based model in [5]
c: from hybrid electromagnetic model in [11]

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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

4.2 Estimation for lightning

waveforms in IEC62305-1

current

In practical design, the effective length of

vertical grounding electrodes for the IEC 62305-1
standard is necessary. Hence, this lightning
characteristic parameter is estimated using the
nonuniform transmission line model and
summarized in Table 3. Based on the results in
this table, a suitable length of grounding
electrodes can be determined for a specific
situation. For instance, in grounding design for a
lightning protection system placed in an area with
soil resistivity of about 100 m, a vertical
electrode of which the maximum length is 5.2 m
is advised to be used. If this electrode is longer
than the above value, the lightning performance of
the electrode will not be improved. This
observation can be seen in Figure 3.
Table 3. Effective length of vertical grounding
electrodes for IEC 62305-1 standard
Effective length (m)

(m)
First stroke current

Subsequent stroke
current

10

10.2

1.5

100

32.2

5.2

500

70.9

12.7

1000

99.8

19.9

: soil resistivity

Figure 3. Impulse voltage at the injected point of

vertical grounding electrodes for the I leveled
subsequence stroke current of IEC 62305-1

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In Figure 3, it is seen that when the length of

the grounding electrode increases in a range under
the effective length of 5.2 mm, the lightning
transient behaviour of the electrode becomes
better during the front time of the impulse current,
which can be identified by the decrease of the
maximum voltage. On the other hand, when the
electrode length is long beyond the effective
limitation, the dynamic performance of this
electrode remains unchanged.
5. CONCLUSION
In this research, the nonuniform transmission
line model is used and validated by comparison
with a well-known experiment in [5]. This model
is then applied for estimation of the effective
length of vertical grounding electrodes. Besides,
the estimated results are compared with the ones
from other researchers to verify the view of
accuracy. The effective limitation of vertical
electrode length is finally evaluated for the
lightning currents in IEC62305-1 to provide a
useful database for practical design of grounding
systems.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This study is supported by Young Researcher
Grant from Ho Chi Minh city University of
Technology, Vietnam .

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

REFERENCES
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I. Lorentzou, and N. D.Hatziargyriou,

Transmission Line Modelling of Grounding
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[3]. B. R. Gupta, and B. Thapar, Impulse impedance
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