Resistance to Earth of Grounding Grids in Tow-layer Soil Structure Using FEM and GA

摘要

Numerical methods such as finite element method (FEM) are the most accurate methods for computing of grounding grid resistance. Generally, these methods are complicate and time consuming for designing a grounding system, therefore, in many cases empirical relations are employed. In this paper, many grounding grids in two-layer soil with different dimensions and soil parameters are simulated using FEM. The FEM results are used to optimize the expressions for estimating the grounding resistance. The expressions are optimized by introducing an objective function and using genetic algorithm (GA). Simulations show that the proposed expressions give accurate results that match well with those obtained by complete FEM modeling of the grounding grids.