A study on copper and galvanized grounding performance using palm oil fuel ash as new additive material

Abstract

This paper aimed to study the improvement of grounding performance by reducing the grounding electrode resistance using palm oil fuel ash as the backfill. This is achieved by mixing the soil with a specific portion of palm oil fuel ash and obtains the grounding electrode resistance value by using Three Pin Method. In order to obtain the grounding electrode resistance, the mixture of palm oil fuel ash and soil were compacted and installed with electrodes. Two types of electrodes were connected to measuring device which is Kyoritsu Digital Earth Tester Model 4105A and grounding electrode resistance values were displayed. The two types of electrodes used in this study were copper and galvanized steel electrodes. It was found that by adding palm oil fuel ash to the soil, the grounding performance can be improved to at least 90% and above for both copper and galvanized steel electrodes. The palm oil fuel ash is very effective in improving the grounding performance at low cost and environmentally friendly.