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Lightning Protection
9
th
-13
th
November, 2009 Curitiba, Brazil
COMPARISON OF LOW FREQUENCY RESISTANCE AND LIGHTNING
IMPULSE IMPEDANCE ON TRANSMISSION TOWERS
William A. Chisholm
1
, Emanuel Petrache
2
, Fabio Bologna
3
1
Kinectrics/UQAC, Canada W.A.Chisholm@ieee.org
2
Kinectrics, Canada Emanuel.Petrache@kinectrics.com
3
EPRI, USA fbologna@epri.com
Abstract A new field instrument, the Zed-Meter
, has been
developed to test the low-current lightning impulse
impedance Z of transmission tower footings and ground
electrodes. Surge impedance of test leads provided effective
reaction electrodes for the measurements, even when
ungrounded on frozen soil. Cross-calibration studies were
carried out using a variety of low-frequency measurements
of footing resistance R
f
to establish the ratio Z : R
f
for
compact and distributed electrodes.
1 INTRODUCTION
It has been traditional to measure low-frequency
resistance R
f
of transmission tower structures using low
currents and to use this resistance in estimates of
transmission lightning performance. The measured
values of R
f
can be adjusted for ionization and impulse
effects [1] to give:
Low-current transient impedance Z;
High-current transient impedance Z
I
.
Theoretically [2][3] and experimentally, a number of
factors affect the ratios Z : R
f
and Z
I
: R
f
, including:
The contribution of ground plane surge response
and series inductance of distributed electrodes,
which tend to increase the ratio Z : R
f
;
Reductions in the soil resistivity with increasing
frequency, and the effect of displacement current
in the soil dielectric, which both tend to reduce
the ratio Z : R
f
;
Ionization when local electric field gradients
exceed 150-300 kV/m in soil, increasing the
apparent size of small electrodes and reducing
the ratio Z
I
: R
f
as current increases.
Recent work [4] has suggested that, while ionization can
play an important role in the response of small electrodes
such as a single driven rod, for the typical 5 to 50 m
dimensions of transmission tower foundations and ground
electrodes the role of ionization is limited. A recent
analysis suggests that, for extensive electrodes, the
ionization effect reduces the contact resistance but not
the geometric resistance, and for transmission tower
footings the geometric resistance is dominant.
In order to understand the response of the transmission
tower to lightning surges, a new test method [5][6] was
proposed and developed. This test method used a
compact current impulse source and distributed leads as
reaction antennas to measure the transient impedance Z of
transmission tower ground electrodes in-situ.
This paper describes refinements of the test method [6] to
improve repeatability and then reports the results obtained
from Zed-Meter