Soil resistivity and ground resistance for dry and wet soil

Abstract

In this paper, soil resistivity and ground resistance at two different sites near an electrical substation are measured using a grounding system grid with and without rods. With the Wenner four-pole equal-method, the soil resistivity is measured at both selected sites, one of which contains wet soil while the other contains dry soil. Cymgrd simulation software is then used to determine the acceptability of these measured resistivity values by finding out the root mean square error between the measured and calculated values for both wet and dry soil sites. These values for wet and dry soil sties were found to be only 0 % and 4.92 %, respectively, and deemed acceptable. The measured soil resistivity values were then used to evaluate the ground resistance values of a grounding grid ‘with rod’ for the wet soil site and ‘without rods’ for the dry soil site, and then compared with the simulated ground resistance values. These comparisons were also found to be in good agreement. In addition, ground potential rise, maximum permissible step and touch potentials have also been estimated using the simulation software.