Determining the soil resistivity

to design a good substation

grounding system
Design a safe substation grounding
system
It is essential to determine the soil resistivity and maximum grid currents to
design a substation grounding system. The touch and step voltages are directly
proportional to these values. Overly conservative values of soil resistivity and
grid current will increase the cost dramatically.

Underestimating them may cause the design to be unsafe.

Soil Resistivity
Soil resistivity investigations are necessary to determine the soil structure.
There are a number of tables in the literature showing the ranges of
resistivity based on soil types (clay, loam, sand, shale, etc.) .

These tables give only very rough estimates.

The soil resistivity can change dramatically with changes

in moisture, temperature, and chemical content. To determine the soil resistivity
of a particular site, soil resistivity measurements need to be taken.

Soil resistivity can vary both horizontally and vertically, making it necessary to
take more than one set of measurements.
The most widely used test for determining soil resistivity data was developed
by Wennerand is called either the Wenner or four-pin method. Using four pins
or electrodes driven into the earth along a straight line at equal distances of a,
to a depth of b, current is passed through the outer pins while a voltage reading
is taken with the two inside pins.
Based on the resistance R, as determined by the voltage and current, the
apparent resistivity can be calculated using the following equation, assuming
bis small compared with a:

ρa = 2πaR
where it is assumed the apparent resistivity ρ, at depth a is given by the
equation.

Interpretation of the apparent soil resistivity based on field measurements is

difficult. Uniform and two-layer soil models are the most commonly used soil
resistivity models. The objective of the soil model is to provide a good
approximation of the actual soil conditions.

Interpretation can be done either manually or by the use of computer analysis.

There are commercially available computer programs that take the soil data and
mathematically calculate the soil resistivity and give a confidence level based
on the test.
Sunde developed a graphical method to interpret the test results.

The equations in IEEE Std. 80 require a uniform soil resistivity. Engineering

judgment is required to interpret the soil resistivity measurements to
determine the value of the soil resistivity ρ, to use in the equations. IEEE
Std. 80 presents equations to calculate the apparent soil resistivity based on
field measurements as well as examples of Sunde’s graphical method.

Although the graphical method and equations are estimates, they provide the
engineer with guidelines of the uniform soil resistivity to use in the ground grid
design.
Conducting a Wenner 4-point soil resistivity
test
When conducting a Wenner 4-point soil resistivity test , we need to consider the
effects that the “Sphere-of-Influence” will have on our test, in two (2) ways:

1. The distance our test is being conducted from any buried metallic objects,
railroad tracks, fence lines, etc. This distance should be equal or greater than
the maximum (“a”) spacing of our test. In other words, if you are conducting a
Wenner 4-point test with a maximum probe spacing of 60-meters (a 180-meter
traverse), there should be no interfering objects (fence, buried metal pipes, etc.)
within 60-meters of any part of our test.

2. The probes we use to conduct the test, will have their own sphere-of-
influence that they will generate based on the depth they are driven in to the
earth. For hand calculations, the probe depth may not exceed 1/20 of the
spacing of the Wenner test. Advanced computer algorithms can adjust for these
differences, but the 1/20th rule is a good one.