Earth Conductor Sizing
Earth Conductor Sizing
Report
31/05/2018
Calculation Summary
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Project Background 1
1.2 Objective 1
1.3 Reference Documents 1
Appendices
1 Introduction
The MEP fit out of the Tunnel is divided into two phases, the Staged Handover and the Full Fit Out. The
Staged. Handover targets to establish a road access to Shis Village only, whereas the Full Fit Out will
incorporate the Al-Rough Tunnel into the Diftah to Khor Fakkan Road with its four more tunnels.
1.2 Objective
The document covers the design philosophy and calculations of Earth Conductor of the Fire pump Room as
Per BS-7430 /IEEE-80:2008.
Standards issued by IEEE/British Standards have been considered for the Earth Conductor.
Code Description
IEEE Std 80-2000 Standard for safety in AC grounding system
The Earth Conductor is required to be sized for the Fire pump room.
Determining the minimum size of the Earthing conductors is necessary to ensure that the Earthing will be
able to withstand the maximum earth fault current. Like a normal power cable under fault, the Earthing grid
conductors experience an adiabatic short circuit temperature rise. However unlike a fault on a normal cable,
where the limiting temperature is that which would cause permanent damage to the cable's insulation, the
Earth Conductor Sizing
temperature limit for the Earthing conductors is the melting point of the conductor. In other words, during the
worst case earth fault, the Earthing grid conductors starts melting.
The minimum conductor size capable of withstanding the adiabatic temperature rise associated with an earth
fault is given by re-arranging IEEE STD 80 Equation 37:
Where A is the minimum cross-sectional area of the Earthing grid conductor. (mm2)
is the thermal capacity of the conductor per unit volume. (Jcm - 3ºC - 1)
The material constants Tm, αr, ρr and TCAP for common conductor materials can be found in IEEE
STD 80 Table 1.
Table: Extract from IEEE Std 80-2000 – Table 01 Page number 42.
Earth Conductor Sizing
The following values are substituted in the above equation. (From IEEE 80:2000 Table.1)
The Earth conductor size is obtained from above equation is 89.74 mm 2 copper (Annealed soft-
drawn) conductor.