Electrical Grounding Analysis

SKM Ground Mat is a program for substation ground grid design and analysis. It is designed to help optimize grid design or reinforce existing grids of any shape. It uses a general-purpose finite element algorithm for potential analysis and graphical facilities to validate ground system efficiency.

Benefits:

• Design safer and more cost effective ground grids.
• Save time with graphical entry and display.
• Communicate designs more easily with professional reports and graphs.
• Evaluate alternatives quickly and easily to establish an optimal design.
• Save time with design wizard capabilities.
• PTW Ground Mat is an important tool every power system engineer should have.

Solution Algorithms:

• Finite element analysis of the ground conductors.
• Finite element analysis of the ground rods.
• Grid conductor current displacement using Matrix analysis.

Analysis Options:

• Earth model analysis from field measurements.
• User specified fault current.
• Grid and Ground potential analysis.
• Ability to analyze multiple ground systems.
• Ability to analyze the potential rise for each grounding system including neighboring passive grids or rods.
• Safety analysis including surface materials, based on body weight and exposure time.
• Option to use IEEE Std. 80 or IEC Std. 479 for safety analysis.
• Calculation of maximum permissible touch and step voltages.
• Comprehensive report for grid and rod configuration.
• Comprehensive report for surface potential analysis featuring station data and currents diffused to ground by the grid elements.
• Danger point evaluation.
• Touch voltage, step voltage, and earth potential analysis.

Interface Options:

• Create and store alternative designs with a simple copy/paste.
• Data entry for grid and rods in spreadsheet format.
• Data entry for earth model in spreadsheet format.
• Grid/rod/profile wizards to setup initial system.
• 3D/2D representation of grid and rod configuration.
• 3D display of touch voltage, step voltage, and earth potential plots.
• Report viewer for text reports.
• Cut, copy and paste grid/rod segments in spreadsheet.
• Range-checking for simulation parameters.
• User-defined thresholds for danger area evaluation.
• User-defined color coding for graphical safety analysis.
• Metric and English units.
• Group print function.

Project setup Options:

• Stores multiple study revisions for each project.
• Expanding tree structure to manage project revisions.
• Input data and output results saved for each study.
• Copy, paste and rename study revisions to compare alternative designs.
• Run studies for multiple study revisions as a single action.