DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF A NOVEL EARTHING PROTECTIONSYSTEM FOR IMPROVED GROUND APPLICATION SAFETY

Abstract

Proper earthing systems are critical in the safety of personnel, equipment protection and safe electrical installation functioning. Nevertheless, traditional grounding systems tend to be highly ground resistant, have high touch and step voltage and poor monitoring performance, especially with high resistivity or environmentally dynamic soils. The paper gives a design and analysis of a Novel Earthing Protection System (NEPS) which has been created to enhance the safety of ground applications by adopting a hybrid grounding structure and smart monitoring system. The proposed system incorporates vertical ground rods, horizontal grid conductors with chemical electrodes to improve dispersion of current and minimise the aggregate grounding resistance. The analytical modelling was done based on the IEEE Std 80 and IEC 60364 standards to assess ground resistance, Ground Potential Rise (GPR), touch voltage and step voltage. The Wenner four-point method was used to measure soil resistivity in order to give precise design inputs. Results demonstrate that the NEPS achieves approximately 80% reduction in ground resistance and ground potential rise compared to conventional rod-based systems, while reducing touch and step voltages by about 65%, ensuring compliance with permissible safety limits. Fault response time and system reliability was further enhanced with the addition of an intelligent monitoring module which included ground resistance sensing and leakage current sensing. On the whole, the suggested system is a strong, dynamic, and safety-conforming grounding solution that can be used in critical infrastructure