Calculation of Touch Potentials

[pace]

Has anyone reviewed the various computer programs for calculating touch and step potentials in substations?
I see IEEE std 80 refers to a few but I can not find any details.
Thanks

 

[jghrist]

We decided on software from Safe Engineering Services & technologies ltd. (SES) and have been quite satisfied. It was developed by Dr. Farid Dawalibi who has published many papers on grounding. Dr. Dawalibi's reputation was the main reason for our choice. See

http://www.sestech.com/index_netscape.asp

You should also consider WinIGS by Advanced Grounding Concepts, developed by Dr. Sakis Meliopoulos. This software is the commercial version of software developed for EPRI. Dr. Meliopoulos also has an excellent reputation in the grounding field.

 

[stretched2thin]

We also use the software from Safe Engineering Services. It's pretty expensive. (Each module costs around $5000 to $6000 as I recall, of which you'll need at least two.) However, if you are going to be designing ground grids regularly, I wouldn't recommend anything else. I might add, the tech support at SES is OUTSTANDING.

I know the people that make ETAP software also have a ground grid module. I'm sure it's less expensive. However, I've never used it.

 

[hea48]

We used the (IGS)grounding analysis program by Dr. A. P. Sakis Meliopoulos professor at Georgia Tech. He is the main author of the EPRI grounding programs and one of the main contributors to the IEEE 80. We are very happy with his program. sakis.meliopoulos@ece.gatech.edu

 

[cuky2000]

Depend on the complexity of the substation, purchasing sofisticated software may not be necesary.

There are available templates in MathCad and Excel that could be use with decent results for many applications.