Author(s)

I. Colominas, F. Navarrina & M. Casteleiro

Abstract

A BEM approach for grounding grid computation I. Colominas, F. Navarrina & M. Casteleiro . de MeWoa SUMMARY Grounding systems are designed to preserve human safety and grant the integrity of equipments under fault conditions. To achieve these goals, the equivalent electrical resistance of the system must be low enough to ensure that fault currents dissipate (mainly) through the grounding elec- trode into the earth, while maximum potential gradients between close points on the earth surface must be kept under certain tolerances (step and touch voltages) [1,2]. In this paper, we present a Boundary Element approach for the nu- merical computation of grounding systems. In this general framework, former intuitive widespread techniques (such as the Average Potential Method) are identified as the result of specific choices for the test and trial functions, while the unexpected anomalous asymptotic behaviour of these kind of methods [3] is mathematically explai

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