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Lyn Cosby

Substation Safety – Are You Rock Solid?

By Conduit
Substation design typically calls for 2-6” of aggregate (crushed rock) as a top layer upon completion of construction. This layer serves several purposes, including improved vehicle access, reduced erosion, and suppression of vegetation. Another significant function of this layer is to provide personnel safety by increasing the allowed (maximum permissible) touch and step potential values versus native soil. When the aggregate becomes a critical part of the site’s safety, knowledge of the aggregate’s composition and...
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November 29, 2023
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Grounding Gotchas: Common Testing Mistakes

By Conduit
Grounding in electrical systems is a simple concept – theoretically. When it comes to testing, grounding quickly becomes more complicated. Grounding system testing is based on mathematical formulas comparing the system under test to "remote" earth and can't account for real-world installations. Site testing is complicated by connections to other grounding systems and other grounded equipment that can influence the results, such as water and gas pipes, building steel, concrete footings, and any nearby buried...
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August 23, 2022
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Conductor Licking and Fall of Potential

By Conduit, uPDate

Since the mid-twentieth century, the physical world around us has changed dramatically, so why is a grounding system test method adopted nearly 75 years ago still so widely used today? And what are the inherent problems when using an antiquated approach in the modern world? Read more…

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September 21, 2018
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A Cookie Cutter Approach Can Cost You Dough

By Conduit, uPDate

How often is your standardized approach resulting in an over-designed ground grid? Stop wasting your dough by blindly erring on the side of caution simply because you don’t know what lies beneath. While standardizing a ground grid design seems like it would save time and money, this approach fails to consider a site’s soil composition and resistivity. Soil resistivity is affected by variables such as layer composition, moisture, molecular structure, salt content, other chemicals, etc. Making assumptions based merely on a site’s location, visible soil observations, or soil borings is not enough to determine its apparent resistivity. All variables, especially those affecting life-safety, must be incorporated to allow for site-specific considerations…

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October 12, 2017
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Is Infrared Testing the Best Use of Your Maintenance Dollars?

By Conduit

Find it Early An unplanned outage of any kind is intolerable – and expensive. Preventive maintenance of electrical equipment plays a key role in minimizing outages, yet this type of maintenance is often overlooked. Without an effective electrical preventive maintenance program, the risk of serious electrical failure increases. According to IEEE 493-2007 — Recommended Practice for the Design of Reliable Industrial and Commercial Power Systems, electrical equipment deterioration is normal, but left unchecked it can…

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May 12, 2016
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Ground Fault Protection

By Conduit

Ground Fault Testing: Why It Matters A ground fault occurs when an energized portion of a grounded electrical system becomes unintentionally connected with a path to “ground” or “earth” (through personnel, equipment enclosures, grounded conductors, conduits, fish-tape, etc.). When this happens, the system phase-to-ground voltage can cause harmful and excessive levels of current to flow through the unintentional path. The magnitude of unwanted ground current varies depending on a variety of system conditions. Higher levels…

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February 19, 2014
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