{"id":13987,"date":"2016-05-26T21:31:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T21:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iacdrive.com\/2016\/05\/26\/differences-of-grounding-bonding-and-ground-fault-protection\/"},"modified":"2024-01-27T00:46:13","modified_gmt":"2024-01-27T00:46:13","slug":"differences-of-grounding-bonding-and-ground-fault-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/?p=13987","title":{"rendered":"AQ:  Differences of Grounding, Bonding and Ground Fault Protection?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Grounding (or Earthing) &#8211; intentionally connecting something to the ground. This is typically done to assist in dissipating static charge and lightning energy since the earth is a poor conductor of electricity unless you get a high voltage and high current. <\/p>\n<p>Bonding is the intentional interconnection of conductive items in order to tie them to the same potential plane &#8212; and this is where folks get the confusion to grounding\/earthing. The intent of the bonding is to ensure that if a power circuit faults to the enclosure or device, there will be a low-impedance path back to the source so that the upstream overcurrent device(s) will operate quickly and clear the fault before either a person is seriously injured\/killed or a fire originates.<\/p>\n<p>Ground Fault Protection is multi-purpose, and I will stay in the Low Voltage (&lt;600 volts) arena. One version, that ends up being seen in most locations where there is low voltage (220 or 120 volts to ground) utilization, is a typically 5-7 mA device that&#8217;s looking to ensure that current flow out the hot line comes back on the neutral\/grounded conductor; this is to again protect personnel from being electrocuted when in a compromised lower resistance condition. Another version is the Equipment Ground Fault Protection, and this is used for resistive heat tracing or items like irrigation equipment; the trip levels here are around 30 mA and are more for prevention of fires. The final version of Ground Fault Protection is on larger commercial\/industrial power systems operating with over 150 volts to ground\/neutral (so 380Y\/220, 480Y\/277 are a couple typical examples) and &#8212; at least in the US and Canada &#8212; where the incoming main circuit interrupting device is at least 1000 amps (though it&#8217;s not a bad idea at lower, it&#8217;s just not mandated); here it&#8217;s used to ensure that a downstream fault is cleared to avoid fire conditions or the event of &#8216;Burn Down&#8217; since there&#8217;s sufficient residual voltage present that the arc can be kept going and does not just self-extinguish. <\/p>\n<p>In the Medium and High Voltage areas, the Ground Fault Protection is really just protective relaying that&#8217;s monitoring the phase currents and operating for an imbalance over a certain level that&#8217;s normally up to the system designer to determine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grounding (or Earthing) &#8211; intentionally connecting something to the ground. This is typically done to assist in dissipating static charge and lightning energy since the earth is a poor conductor of electricity unless you get a high voltage and high current. <\/p>\n<p>Bonding is the intentional interconnection of conductive items in order to tie them to the same potential plane &#8212; and this is where folks get the confusion to grounding\/earthing. The intent of the bonding is to ensure that if a power circuit faults to the enclosure or device, there will be a low-impedance path back to the source so that the upstream overcurrent device(s) will operate quickly and clear the fault before either a person is seriously injured\/killed or a fire originates.<\/p>\n<p>Ground Fault Protection is multi-purpose, and I will stay in the Low Voltage (&lt;600 volts) arena. One version, that ends up being seen in most locations where there is low voltage (220 or 120 volts to ground) utilization, is a typically 5-7 mA device that&#8217;s looking to ensure that current flow out the hot line comes back on the neutral\/grounded conductor; this is to again protect personnel from being electrocuted when in a compromised lower resistance condition. Another version is the Equipment Ground Fault Protection, and this is used for resistive heat tracing or items like irrigation equipment; the trip levels here are around 30 mA and are more for prevention of fires. The final version of Ground Fault Protection is on larger commercial\/industrial power systems operating with over 150 volts to ground\/neutral (so 380Y\/220, 480Y\/277 are a couple typical examples) and &#8212; at least in the US and Canada &#8212; where the incoming main circuit interrupting device is at least 1000 amps (though it&#8217;s not a bad idea at lower, it&#8217;s just not mandated); here it&#8217;s used to ensure that a downstream fault is cleared to avoid fire conditions or the event of &#8216;Burn Down&#8217; since there&#8217;s sufficient residual voltage present that the arc can be kept going and does not just self-extinguish. <\/p>\n<p>In the Medium and High Voltage areas, the Ground Fault Protection is really just protective relaying that&#8217;s monitoring the phase currents and operating for an imbalance over a certain level that&#8217;s normally up to the system designer to determine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13987"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15109,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13987\/revisions\/15109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}