Computation of Critical Length for Linear Grounding Electrodes

For the surge currents like lightning currents containing high frequency components and the abnormal currents having high frequencies which cause the EMI(Electromagnetic interference) problems for the electronic devices and communication instruments, the linear grounding electrodes have the significantly composite impedance characteristics which are dependent on the frequency of the applied current. The impedance of a grounding electrode is not lowered by expanding the dimension of the grounding electrode, and the length of grounding electrode having the minimum value of the grounding impedance for each condition of frequency and soil characteristics is existent, and it is defined as Critical length. In this paper, the critical lengths for the vertically and horizontally-buried grounding electrodes are calculated by using the distributed parameter circuit model. The propriety of the simulations has been confirmed by comparing the simulated results with the measured results.