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Abstract This paper presents the characteristics of soil ionization for different water contents, and
the parameters associated with the dynamic properties of a simple model grounding system subject to
lightning impulse currents. The laboratory experiments for this study were carried out based on factors
affecting the soil resistivities. The soil resistivities are adjusted with water contents in the range from 2
to 8% by weight. A test cell with a spherical electrode buried in the middle of the hemispherical
container was used. As a result, the electric field intensity Ec initiating ionization is decreased with the
reduction of soil resistivities. Also, as the water content increased, the pre-ionization resistance R1 and
the post-ionization resistance R2 became lower with increasing current amplitude. The time-lag to
ionization t1 and the time-lag to the second current peak t2 at high applied voltages were significantly
shorter than those of low applied voltages. It was found that the soil ionization behaviors are highly
dependent on the water content and the applied voltage amplitude.
Keywords: Soil ionization, Critical electric field intensity for ionization, Soil resistivity, V-I curve,
Impulse current
applied to the test electrode. A capacitive divider with a 3. Results and Discussion
ratio of 10,000:1 was used for the voltage measurement.
The current was measured by using a coaxial shunt of 0.02 3.1 Parameters characterizing soil ionization
in series with the grounded plate. The voltage and
current signals were recorded by a 4 channel 500 Fig. 2 shows typical voltage and current responses
oscilloscope together with a function of data acquisition indicating the appearance of soil ionization. Generally,
and Matlab software was utilized for the data analysis. nonlinear soil behaviour is said to occur when the second
The control devices and instruments were placed in a current peak is observed. Soil ionization leads to the
Faraday cage. Also, high-frequency line filters and an increase of current and a corresponding decrease of
isolating transformer were installed on the power mains of voltage. Therefore, during the soil ionization, the soil
the instruments to reduce noise and disturbances. resistivity is drastically decreased. Two current peaks
could be attributed to thermal and ionization processes [5],
[9]. High initial peaks on the current trace were
considered to be caused by capacitive effects of the
Marx generator
Sand
between sand particles and the electrode [10]. The rise
time of the current is slower than that of the applied
voltage because of the ionization and inductance of the
Oscilloscope
Shunt
3.2 Critical electric field intensities for ionization and 5 Critical electric field for ionization
breakdown Critical electric field for breakdown
0
2% 4% 6% 8%
The principal factor affecting soil resistivity is the water
Percentage Water Content
content in soils. The soil resistivities ranging from a few
Fig. 3 Critical electric field intensities for ionization and
m to several km are changed, under controlled breakdown in medium grain size sand as a
conditions, by using differing water content, grain size function of water content
and type of soil [11],[13]. In this study, in order to
determine the effects of soil resistivities on the critical electric field intensity Ec of 16.5 / at a water content
electric field for ionization Ec, the sand resistivities were of 2% and the initiation voltage of 11.9 corresponds
controlled by mixing the sand with different levels of to the critical electric field intensity Ec of 10.2 / at a
water content. Generally, the critical electric field for
water content of 8%. The critical electric field intensity
ionization Ec is determined at the instant when the V-I
for ionization decreases as a function of the increasing
characteristic starts to become nonlinear. The critical
water content, and is dependant on water content. This is
electric field intensity at the surface of the ground
because soil ionization occurs to a high degree in soil with
electrode consisting of the concentric hemispherical test
higher water contents. Also, the critical electric field
cell is given by [11],[12]:
intensity for breakdown calculated to compare the critical
electric field intensity for ionization decreases slightly
V (1)
E (r ) = with increasing water content.
1 1
r2( )
r1 r2 3.3 Pre-ionization and post-ionization resistances
where r1 is the radius of the ground electrode, r2 is the The transient impedances of grounding systems are
radius of the hemispherical container, r is the radius of directly related to the soil ionization processes under
the ionization and V is the applied voltage at the ground impulse voltages. It is now widely accepted that the
electrode. second current peak shown in Fig. 2 is caused by soil
The measurements of voltage and current waveforms ionization. The existence of the second current peak
were made repeatedly until the oscillograms indicate soil allows the definition of two resistances discriminating
ionization or breakdown with fine adjustment of the between pre-ionization resistance R1 and post-ionization
applied voltage. resistance R2, where R1 is related to the first current peak
The critical electric field intensities for ionization and and R2 corresponds to the second current peak. The
breakdown at the surface of the ground electrode were resistances are calculated as the ratio of the voltage, when
calculated by substituting the measured ionization and the current is the maximum, to the maximum current
breakdown voltage into equation (1), respectively. value. They are expressed as follows [5],[12]:
The critical electric field intensities for ionization and
breakdown of the sand with varying water content under V ( I peak1 )
R1 = (2)
the positive impulse are shown in Fig. 3. The up-and- I peak1
down method based on KS C IEC 60060 was employed to
determine breakdown electric field intensity [14]. and
At least 10 shots were applied for each test sample to
decide the breakdown voltage. It was found that the V ( I peak 2 )
R2 = (3)
initiation voltage of 19.1 corresponds to the critical I peak 2
Bok-Hee Lee, Geon-Hun Park, Hoe-Gu Kim and Kyu-Sun Lee 101
where I peak 1 is the first current peak, I peak 2 is the occurs, an increase in the temperature of soil will result in
a slight decrease of the soil resistance, due to the increased
second current peak and V is the applied voltage at the
mobility of the ions. R1 reduces to a minimum of 1.58
instant of the corresponding peak current. The inductive
effect is excluded in these results since at the instant of for sand mixed with a water content of 8%.
peak current, di/dt = 0. Soil ionization occurs near the surface of the ground
The low conduction currents in the test sand medium electrode, above the critical electric field intensity, and
with higher resistivity were observed. The pre-ionization decreases the ground resistance. The post-ionization
resistance R1 and the post-ionization resistance R2 were resistance R2 was illustrated as a function of peak currents
measured as a function of peak currents obtained for obtained for different water content under positive
different water content, up to the breakdown voltage of impulse voltages, and it decreased with increases in the
the test cell. Fig. 4(a) shows the pre-ionization resistance current amplitude for any given water content, as shown
R1 against the current amplitude. The pre-ionization in Fig. 4(b). The post-ionization resistance R2 is a
resistance R1 without soil ionization has only slight nonlinear function of the injected impulse current.
variation with increasing current amplitude. Also, R1 is The post-ionization resistance R2 is significantly
obtained to have lower amplitude with increasing water decreased according to, not only the increase of current
content. amplitude, but also the increase of the water content. For
higher water contents, above 6%, the post-ionization
resistances were less dependent upon current amplitude. It
Pre-ionization resistance R1 ()
5
was observed that the nonlinearity is much pronounced at
2%
4% peak current amplitude below 20 A where the resistance
4
6% decreased steeply. The post-ionization resistance R2 is
8% reduced to a minimum value of 1.3 at a water content
3
of 2% and the minimum of 290 at a water content of
2 8%. Due to soil ionization, the effective radius of the live
electrode is expanded to its maximum volume, and
1 consequently it is reducing resistance. When impulse tests
are repeated under the same conditions, good repeatability
0 is obtained, and values of the post-ionization resistance R2
0 5 10 15 20
Current (A)
are measured similarly. This resistance R2 is always lower
than the pre-ionization resistance R1.
(a) Pre-ionization resistance R1 against current amplitude
The ground resistance of the hemispherical grounding
system can be given by:
Post-ionization resistance R2 ()
5
2%
4 4% 1 1
6% R1 = ( ) (4)
8% 2 r1 r2
3
where r1 is the radius of the ground electrode, r2 is the
2
radius of the hemispherical container and is the soil
resistivity without soil ionization. The soil resistivity in
1
this test condition was calculated by using the pre-
0 ionization resistance R1. The soil resistivity could be
0 20 40 60 80 obtained with reasonable accuracy. The measured soil
Current (A) resistivity based on the pre-ionization resistance was
(b) Post-ionization resistance R2 against current amplitude tabulated in Table 1.
Fig. 4 Pre-ionization and post-ionization resistances as a
function of current amplitude Table 1 Measured soil resistivity as function of water
content
The temperature of soil may be measured due to Water content [%] 2 4 6 8
repeated application of the test current. The reason for the Resistivity [m ] 336.5 208.4 169.1 134.3
reduction of R1 is due to thermal effects. If no evaporation
102 Analysis of Soil Ionization Behaviors under Impulse Currents
The post-ionization resistance is closely related to the field enhanced point and propagates toward the opposite
extension of the soil ionization region and the variation of electrode. The radius of the ionization region increases
the ionization regions resistivity. The large second current with current amplitude and is weakly dependent on the
peak is caused by the occurrence of the streamer corona at water content as shown in Fig. 6.
the surface of the ground electrode. The soil resistivity in
60
1 1 8%
R2 = ( ) (5)
2 ri r2 10
20 Applied voltage
2% 15
4% 20
Time-lag t2 ()
15
6%
Current (A)
25
8%
10
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Time ()
Voltage ()
(b) Current waveform
(b) Time-lag to the second current peak
Fig. 7 Time-lags related to soil ionization process for
various water contents
Applied voltage
3.5 V-I curves 15
20
In addition, the analysis method of the V-I characteristic 25
6%
8%
Voltage ()
Time ()
Time ()
(a) Voltage waveform (a) Voltage waveform
104 Analysis of Soil Ionization Behaviors under Impulse Currents
2% 4. Conclusion
4%
6% In this paper, investigations of soil ionization occurring
8% in sand with varying water content under impulse currents
Current (A)
The V-I curve is a novel method to determine the critical
electric field intensity for ionization. Consequently, the
2% soil ionization behaviors closely depend not only on the
4% water content, but also the applied voltage amplitude. The
6% obtained results may provide useful information on the
8%
design of grounding systems protecting electrical and
electronic equipment from overvoltages.
Current (A)
(c) V-I curves
Fig. 9 V-I curves indicated as a parameter of water Acknowledgements
contents at the applied voltage of 25
This work was supported by the Ministry of Knowledge
Fig. 9 shows the voltage and current oscillograms, V-I Economy under Grant R-2007-1-014.
curves indicated as a parameter of the water content at the
positive applied voltage amplitude of 25 . V-I curves
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Educational Development Institute
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pp.193-203, 2004. University. His research interests are in the area of
lightning protection and grounding systems.
Bok-Hee Lee
He was born in Korea on June 29, 1954.
He received his B.S. degree in
Electrical Engineering from Inha
University in 1980 and his Ph.D.
degree in Electrical Engineering from
Inha University in 1987, respectively.
He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at
Inha University, Incheon, Korea as an Assistant Professor