Transient behavior of grounding systems embedded in different earth structures

A grounding system has to ensure personal safety with regard to the developed step and touch voltages, avert damage to properties and equipment, and achieve reliability of the power system. In this paper, the software package PC OPERA has been used for the simulation of the transient behavior of a driven rod embedded into different earth structures. This software package is able to calculate electromagnetic fields by using the Finite Element Method in order to estimate the corresponding vector and scalar potentials. Moreover, the influence of the voltage waveform on the behavior of the rod has been studied. The results demonstrate the contribution of the earth structure to the developed potential around the rod and the flexibility of the software package when simulating transient phenomena.