Industrial system grounding for power, static, lightning, and instrumentation, practical applications

Practically every structural steel building erected for industrial use incorporates reinforcing steel bars installed in the concrete footings. This, without any additional effort, constitutes a grounding electrode. The quantity of electrodes is directly related to the building area. When the structural steel framework is erected and interconnected, these electrodes are also interconnected in a parallel arrangement. Similarly, high-voltage metal transmission towers are installed using a metal footing base embedded in a concrete filled hole. The four tower legs are effectively in parallel and offer an adequate low ground resistance such that additional electrodes are generally not required. This brings us to the main point: the reinforced concrete footings, reinforced concrete grade beams, and other reinforced concrete structures provide, with a little work, an effective, reliable, and cost attractive system grounding vehicle