EARTHING AND
PROTECTION
What is Grounding or Earthing?
■ The process of connecting the metallic bodies of all the electrical apparatus and
equipments to the earth by a wire having negligible resistance for safety purposes.
■ If there is a fault in an electrical installation, a person could get an electric shock by
touching a live metal part, because electricity uses the body as a path to the earth.
Earthing provides an alternate path for a fault current to flow to earth.
Electrical system without earthing
Electrical system with earthing
Symbol of Earthing
Earthing cable
Earthing cable mostly comes in two colors:
Importance of Earthing
■ Protects the personnel from the shortcircuit current.
■ Provides the easiest path to the flow of shortcircuit
current even after the failure of the insulation.
■ Protects the apparatus and personnel from the high
voltage surges and lightning discharge.
Circuit protective
conductor
Protective device in DB trips
And disconnects the circuit
Fault current flows
to earth
■ Metal parts may become ‘live’ when there is a fault.
■ Earthing is to minimize the risk of electric shock if someone
touch the metal parts.
■ Thus, earthing will provide a path for fault current to flow
safely to earth, which also cause the protective device to
disconnect the circuit.
■ Bonding is the joining of metallic pieces to form a conducting path which ensures
safe electrical continuity. Bonding is generally done as protection from electrical
shocks.
■ Bonding is to minimize the risk of electric shock to anyone who may touch two
separate conductive part when a fault occurs.
Minimise overvoltage
Limit voltage potential on equipment enclosures
THREE (3) importance
for grounding in
electrical installation
system.
Provide a low-impedance path for fault current
Lightning Protection System
Protective Devices
THREE (3) types of protection devices that consisted in user
control unit.
■ Main switch
- Work as a break-in switch on the user side. In the main switch, there is an option to
choose fuse of 40 A or 60 A.
■ Earthing Leakage Circuit Breaker (ELCB/RCCB)
- ELCB / RCCB functions to protect leakage current to the earth.
- This ELCB/RCCB is usually brought in with several choices with a current rating of 32A
or 60A and also a sensitivity level of leakage current of 100 mA, 30 mA or 10 mA.
■ Miniature circuit breaker (MCB)
- MCB function to limit current for each final circuit.
- There are various current rating options depending on the type of final circuits to be
installed.
- For example, for the final circuits that require low currents such as fans and lamps, the
choice of MCB rating can be either 6A or 10A rating.
Exercise 1
A single phase, 240 V, 15 kW 50 Hz motor circuit operating at
0.8 power factor lagging is protected by a cartridge fuse having
blowing current of 110 A. A fault occurs in the circuit causes a
current of 220 A to flow through the earth continuity path. As a
result of poor contact due to a lock nut and bush connecting a
steel conduit to metal box, the resistance of this conduit
connection alone is 1.35 Ω.
1. Inspect whether the fuse will rupture or not.
2. Examine the amount of heat produced at the metal box.
1. Predict whether the fuse will rupture or not.
The rating current:
15kW
Ir 78.125 A
240V 0.8
Fusing factor:
The ratio of the minimum fusing current to the rating current of the load
Since according to regulation
D22, the protection is by
cartridge having a fuse factor
110 A
FF 1.41 not exceed 1.5, then the
maximum current in the fault
78.125 A is 2.4 x 78.125 = 187.5 A
Yes, the fuse will rupture because maximum current
in the fault is 187.5 A. It cannot withstand the fault
current of 220 A.
1. Examine the amount of heat produced at the metal box.
■ Heat exist due to the power loss. It is calculated by loss of power due to the current
flow through metal box.
■ P = 𝐼2 𝑅
= (220)2 𝑥 1.35 𝑂ℎ𝑚
= 65.34 kW
Exercise 2
A single phase, 240 V, 20 kW 50 Hz motor circuit operating at
0.85 power factor lagging is protected by a cartridge fuse
having blowing current of 100 A. A fault occurs in the circuit
causes a current of 200 A to flow through the earth continuity
path. As a result of poor contact due to a lock nut and bush
connecting a steel conduit to metal box, the resistance of this
conduit connection alone is 1.35 Ω.
1. Inspect whether the fuse will rupture or not.
2. Examine the amount of heat produced at the metal box.
Regulation D22 (Basic Earthing Requirements)
States that earth leakage protection may be provided by means of fuses or
excess current circuit breakers if the earth fault current available to
operate the protective device and so make the faulty circuit dead exceeds:
1. 3 times the current rating of any semi enclosed fuse or any
cartridge fuse having a fusing factor exceeding 1.5, used to protect
the circuit, or
2. 2.4 times the rating of any cartridge fuse having a fusing factor
not exceeding 1.5, used to protect the circuit, or
3. 1.5 times the tripping current of any excess current circuit
breaker used to protect the circuit.
