• International Journal of Safety
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.1-5
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• 2010

In order to analyze the potential rise of ground surface of grounding grid installed in buildings, the grounding simulator has been designed and fabricated as substantial and economical measures. This paper describes the study of touch and step voltages with grounding grid where earth leakage current is injected. To assess risk voltage of grounding grid, the grounding simulator and CDEGS program were used to obtain measured data and theoretical results of this study. The grounding simulator was composed of an electrolytic tank, AC power supply, a movable potentiometer, and test grounding electrodes. The potential rise was measured by grounding simulator, and the touch and step voltages were computed by CDEGS program. As a consequence, the touch voltage and step voltage above the grounding grid were very low, but were significantly increased near the edge of grounding grid.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.311-315
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• 2008

Ground systems set the reference voltage level of circuit and system, and suppress Ground Potential Rise (GPR) by flowing fault currents to ground safely. There are several parameters which evaluate the performance of ground systems as ground resistance, touch voltage and step voltage. The touch and step voltages are especially important to ensure safety of human body. In this paper, we measured the touch and step voltages by injection of power frequency and surge current. Also correlation between touch and step voltages is compared and analyzed for the same ground systems.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.108-114
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• 2011

In order to mitigate the possible hazards from electric shock due to the touch and step voltages, the high resistivity material such as gravel is often spread on the earth's surface in substations. When the grounding electrode is installed in two-layer soil structures, the surface layer soil resistivity is different with the resistivity of the soil contacted with the grounding electrodes. The design of large-sized grounding systems is fundamentally based on assuring safety from dangerous voltages within a grounding grid area. The performance of the grounding system is evaluated by tolerable touch and step voltages. Since the floor surface conditions near equipment to be grounded are changed after a grounding system has been constructed, it may be difficult to determine the tolerable touch and step voltage criteria. In this paper, to propose an accurate and convenient method for evaluating the protective performance of grounding systems, the propriety of the method for evaluating the current flowing through the human body around on a counterpoise buried in two-layer soils is presented. As a result, it is reasonable that the grounding system performance would be evaluated by measuring and analyzing the current flowing through the human body based on dangerous voltages such as the touch or step voltages and the contact resistance between the ground surface and feet.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.117-123
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• 2011

Lightning and switching surges propagating through the grounding conductors lead to transient overvoltages, and electronic circuits in information technology systems are very susceptible to damage or malfunction from the electrical surges. Surge damages or malfunctions of electrical and electronic equipment may be caused by potential rises. To solve these problems, it is very important to evaluate the ground surface potential rises and hazardous voltages such as touch and step voltages at or near the grounding systems energized by electrical surges. In this paper, the performance of grounding systems against the surge current containing high frequency components on the basis of the actual-sized tests is presented. The ground surface potential rises and hazardous voltages depending on impulse currents for vertical or horizontal grounding electrodes are measured and analyzed. Also the touch and step voltages caused by the impulse currents are investigated. As a result, the ground surface potential rises, the touch and step voltages near the grounding electrodes are raised and the conventional grounding impedances are increased as the front time of the injected impulse currents is getting faster.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.1
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• pp.113-118
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• 2009

Grounding systems set the reference voltage level of electric circuits and suppress the Ground Potential Rise (GPR) by flowing fault currents to the ground safely. There are several parameters which evaluate the performance of grounding systems as ground resistance, touch voltage and step voltage. The touch and step voltages, which is called "risk voltage", are especially important to ensure the safety of human body. This paper dealt with the influence of current sources with the different frequency components on the touch and the step voltages. Three types of current sources as commercial frequency, square wave, and surge with the fast risetime of $50\;ns{\sim}500\;ns$ were used to analyze the risk voltages in a grounding system. The risk voltages showed remarkable difference in the same current amplitude depending on the current sources, and increased linearly with the current amplitude in the same current source. From the experimental results, it was confirmed that the risk voltages can be evaluated by a small current application in large-scale grounding systems and the possible largest risk voltage can be calculated by a surge current with the risetime of 200 ns or a current source with the same frequency component as the surge current.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.56 no.10
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• pp.1796-1801
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• 2007

This paper presents electric potential rise on the surface of the earth due to ground currents. It is the aim of this paper to propose fundamental data relevant to the earth surface potentials depending on the soil structures. The earth potential rise, touch and step voltages in the immediate vicinity of the ground rod of a distribution pole were measured and analyzed. The results described in this paper are based on laboratory measurements which were intended to simulate conditions existing in actual installations. As a result, the earth surface potential rise, touch and step voltages strongly depend on the soil structure. The highest earth surface potential occurred in the vicinity of the top of ground rod. When the ground rod was installed in the distance range of $1{\sim}1.5\;m$ from distribution pole, the highest touch voltages appeared near the place of 1 m on the straight line connecting the distribution pole to ground rod.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.97-103
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• 2011

The most important object of grounding systems is to protect human being from electric shock. Touch and step voltages are measured to evaluate the performances of grounding systems. Dangerous voltages have been largely studied by the power frequency fault currents, on the other hand, the ground current containing the high frequency components and surge currents haven't been considered. Many attempts about the grounding impedances reported in these days show that the performance of the grounding systems in high frequency range is very different with the ground resistance. It is necessary to analyze the dangerous voltages formed by the ground currents containing high frequency components. In this paper, the ground surface potential rises near the vertical and horizontal grounding electrodes are measured at the frequency of 100[Hz], 30[kHz], and 100[kHz]. Dangerous voltages are investigated with the frequency-dependent grounding impedance. As a result, the ground surface potential rise is increased as the grounding impedance increases. Touch and step voltages near the grounding electrode whose impedance increases with the frequency are sharply raised.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.152-155
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• 2011

This paper presents a comparative analysis on step and the touch voltages generated by either a sine and a ring wave voltage generator; this analysis was done as a basic study in order to develop a small and lightweight ground meter. A ring wave generator using pulsed power technology was fabricated; an experimental grounding system specified in Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standards 80 and 81 was installed. The step and the touch voltages, which were measured using comparable a sine and a ring waves in terms of magnitude and frequency, were equal. Using pulsed power technology, the weight of the fabricated ring wave generator could be reduced to one-fifth of that of a sine wave generator. Consequently, if a ground meter adopts the ring wave instead of a sine wave, it will be possible to reduce the weight of a ground meter and improve the efficiency of measurement.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2000.07c
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• pp.2071-2073
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• 2000

Grounding electrode design is an important part in lightning protection, and the limit of hazardous voltages (step and touch voltages) below the permissible voltage for human body has been the main goal of grounding electrode design. In this paper, the grounding electrode for the reduction of hazardous voltages was designed and evaluated newly. It was known that the inclined auxiliary grounding conductors installed outside the grounding mesh grid are very effective to reduce the step and touch voltages.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.07c
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• pp.1474-1475
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• 2006

This paper describes touch and step voltage in the reinforced concrete and steel poles. Ground surface potential rises were measured as a function of the separation between pole and ground rod. Touch and step voltage are calculated on the basis of the distribution of ground surface potential rises. As a result, touch and step voltages strongly depend on the position of installation of ground rod.