The FEM Analysis of Grounding System When Considering the Soil Ionization Phenomenon under Different Soil Structures

A finite-element mode for the grounding system and soil is built in the software of ANSYS 10.0 to study the performance of grounding systems when considering the soil ionization phenomenon around the grounding system under different soil structures. The calculated results are validated by the simulation results found in the published papers. The performance of the grounding systems when considering the soil ionization effect at high-magnitude current are analyzed under different soil structures. Calculated results show that the distribution of earth surface potential is decreased when the soil ionization occurs. The soil structures are closely related to the performance of the grounding system and the soil ionization phenomenon are not easy to occur in the area of low soil resistivity, where the earth surface potential decreased more once the soil ionization occurs.