KEE-101T/ KEE-201T Basic Electrical Engineer ing
3. It also helps in protecting high-rise buildings from atmospheric lightening. A fork metal
rod or thick wire, called the lightening conductor, sticks out from the top of the building,
chimney, tower, etc. its other end buried deep into the ground. Whenever lightening
occurs, the electricity passes directly from the top of lightening conductor to the earth,
thereby protecting the building from any damage.
Methods of Earthing: Earthing should be done in a way so that on a short circuit, the earth
loop impedance is low enough to pass 3 times the current if fuses are used, and 1.5 times the
current if MCBs are used. The metal work should be solidly earthed without using any
switch or fuse in the circuit.
For effective earthing, the resistance offered by the earth electrode along with the soil in
which electrode is embedded should be quite low.
Galvanised Iron (GI) or copper is used to make an earth electrode.
There are different types of earthing methods are used:
1. Strip or Wire Earthing.
2. Rod Earthing.
3. Pipe Earthing.
4. Plate Earthing.
Pipe and Plate Earthings are commonly used.
1. Strip or Wire Earthing: In this system of earthing, strip electrodes of cross section not less
than 25 mm X 1.6 MM if of copper and 25 mm X 4 mm if of galvanized iron or steel are
buried in horizontal trenches of minimum depth 0.5 metre. If round conductors are used,
their cross-sectional area shall not be smaller than 3.0 mm2 if of copper and 6 mm2 if of
galvanized iron or steel. The length of buried conductor shall be sufficient to give the
required earth resistance. It shall, however, be not less than 1.5 metres.
This type of earthing is used at places which have rocky soil earth bed because at such
places excavation work of plate earthing is difficult.
2. Rod Earthing: In this type of earthing, 12.5 mm diameter solid rods of copper or 16 mm
diameter solid rods of galvanized iron or steel or hollow section 25 mm GI pipes of length
not less than 2.5 metres are driven vertically into the earth either manually or by pneumatic
hammer. In order to increase the embedded length of electrodes under the ground, which is
sometimes necessary to reduce the earth resistance to desired value, more than one rod
sections are hammer ed one above the other.
This system of earthing is suitable for areas which are sandy in character. This sytem of
earthing is very cheap as no excavation work i s involved.
3. Pipe Earthing: In the given figure, a GI pipe with a few holes at its lower end is buried to a
depth not less than 2 m and atleast 0.6 m away from the foundation of any building.
Normally, the size of pipe is either 2m long and 38 mm diameter or 1.37 m long and 51 mm
diameter. However, for dry and rocky soil, we use longer pipes. Alternate layers of common
salt and charcoal have thickness of 30 mm and 80 mm, respectively.
To maintain good conductivity of the soil, an arrangement is made for pouring water into
the earth pit surrounding the earth electrode. This is especially needed during summer. As
the pipe has much larger contact area with soil, it can handle larger leakage currents than
the plate earthing of same electrode size. The earth wire (made of copper) is tightly fastened
to the earth electrode by means of nut and bolt.
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