Training Electrical Grounding, Bonding and Lightning Protection

Training Electrical Grounding, Bonding and Lightning Protection

INTRODUCTION

Poor grounding practice can be the cause of continual and intermittent difficult-to-diagnose problems in a facility. The aim of this course is to increase awareness of and importance of correct earthing practices to ensure safety of personnel plant and equipment and at the same time to understand the codes that govern the designs and installations.

PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES

• Identifying safety hazards created by ineffective grounding systems
• Understandig the effect of connecting grounded and bonded systems
• Being familiar with  the different earthing systems, principal design considerations and methods of lightning protection systems
• Understanding how to protect personnel, plant and equipment during an earth fault or lightning strike
• Being familiar with the requirments to design, install, test, and maintain correct earthing and lightning protection systems

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

• Building service designers
• Design engineers
• Field technicians
• Electricians
• Plant engineers
• Power system protection and control engineers
• Project engineers

PROGRAM OUTLINE

• • What are Grounding and Bonding?
  • Ungrounded system
  • The solidly (or directly) earthed neutral
  • The unearthed neutral, or high impedance-earthed neutral
  • Resistance earthing
  • Reactance earthing
  • Petersen coil earthing
  • Unearthed or impedance-earthed neutral (IT system)
  • Directly earthed neutral (TT system)
  • Connecting the exposed conductive parts to the neutral (TNC – TNS systems)

• • Equipment grounding
  • Shock hazard 
  • Grounding of equipment 
  • Operation of protective devices 
  • Thermal capability 
  • Touch Potential during ground faults 
  • Induced voltage problem
  • Sensing of ground faults 
  • Equipotential bonding 
  • Multiple earthing connections
  • Surge protection earthing
  • Practical: safe touch voltage and sizing of earthing conductors

• • Lightning and surge protection
  • The incidence and probability of a lightning strike
  • Methods of lightning protection
  • What is static electricity?
  • Generation of charge
  • Dangers of static build up
  • Assessment of risks and planning
  • Bonding of different ground systems as a means of surge proofing 
  • Surges and surge protection 
  • Surge protection of electronic equipment 
  •  Achieving graded surge protection 

• • Grounding electrodes
  • Soil resistance 
  • Measurement of soil resistivity 
  • Resistance of a single rod electrode 
  • Current-carrying capacity of an electrode 
  • Use of multiple ground rods in parallel 
  • Measurement of ground resistance of an electrode 
  • Concrete-encased electrodes 
  • Corrosion problems in electrical grounding systems
  • Maintenance of grounding system 
  • Chemical electrodes

• Definition of electric noise
• Earth loops as a cause of noise
• Electrostatic coupling and electromagnetic coupling
• Shielded isolation transformer
• Earthing practices
• Avoidance of earth loop
• Use of insulated ground (IG) receptacle 
• Harmonics in electrical systems
• Grounding issues in static UPS configurations 
• UPS configurations and recommended grounding practices