High precision software packages for grounding analysis and conductive coupling studies.

RESAP FCDIST MALT

AutoGroundDesign AutoGrid Pro

Technical Description

MultiGround+, MultiGround, MultiGround Lite, and AutoGround are powerful, high-precision software packages dedicated to grounding analyses and conductive coupling studies. SES has developed these packages for engineers and scientists who specialize in grounding and conductive interference and who demand accurate, no-compromise solutions.

The RESAP, FCDIST and MALT computation modules make up the core of these software packages.

Features

Put MultiGround to Work

• Carry out and interpret resistivity measurements using the Wenner, Schlumberger, or Dipole-Dipole techniques, or select your own arbitrary electrode spacing configuration. Select horizontal, vertical or exponential multilayered soil structures. Regardless of the complexity of the soil, the grounding module will handle it.
• Determine the fault current distribution between grounding systems and overhead ground wires, skywires, counterpoises, and other metallic paths.
• Analyze complex power system ground networks composed of arbitrarily oriented, coated or bare conductors and metallic plates located in complex soils. Embed arbitrary finite volumes of various resistivities into horizontally layered soils, such as water upstream and downstream of a dam.

  

• Apply Hybrid energization by current or potential to different conductor groups in the same simulation.
• Investigate transferred potentials and currents diverted to coated or uncoated short pipelines or other metallic structures due to energized ground conductor networks.
• Determine distortion effects caused by the proximity of multiple grounding networks.
• Simulate complex anode beds and examine cathodic protection problems involving coated or uncoated pipelines.
• Interpret ground resistance measurements made using the Fall-of-Potential method and other techniques.
• Automatically generate safety tables of touch and step voltages determined according to national, international (e.g. IEEE Std-80) or your own specific standards, as well as plots of grid "hotspots," to help you quickly refine your grounding designs.
• Perform a safety analysis with any number of zones, each having its own surface insulating layer or safety criteria.
• Focus on dangerous zones and identify overdesigned regions to optimize the final design.
• Analyze electrostatic problems for aboveground conductors, such as the safety of vehicles parked under high-voltage power lines.

  

• Obtain optimized lightning shielding system heights for substations, shielding performance estimates for substations and transmission lines, and detailed risk assessments in accordance with IEC 62305-2, with the help of the SESShield module.
• Use a wealth of tools to complement the grounding computations:
  • SESGSE: simple grounding resistance estimator or dimension predictor.
  • SESAmpacity: compute minimum conductor size for a given current, determine conductor ampacity, and determine temperature rise of bare buried conductors during a fault.
  • SESSoilModelManager: determine winter and spring soil models to account for seasonal variations.
  • SESBatch: run a series of simulations in sequence automatically and unattended.
  • And many more…

MultiGround+

MultiGround+ is a version of MultiGround that include the MultiLines software package, thereby adding the TRALIN and SPLITS computation modules. The additional capabilities are:

• Computation of inductive and capacitive interference between energized and non-energized conductors or metallic paths sharing the same right-of-way.
• Calculation of conductor and cable constants (parameters), as well as capacitive and electromagnetic induction effects.
• Development of detailed circuit models to calculate load and short-circuit current distributions in every section of a multi-conductor, multi-phase power network, whether balanced or not.
• Modeling of complex, multi-phase, multi-winding transformers at any location. Built-in single-phase and 3-phase multi-winding transformer models, including autotransformers, are also available.

Less costly versions of the MultiGround package are available for those with more narrow needs or restricted budgets.

AutoGround

The AutoGround package includes the same features as the MultiGround package, but is limited to uniform and two-layer horizontal soil grounding analyses. Note that AutoGround still accurately interprets soil resistivity measurements corresponding to multilayered soil structures.

MultiGround Lite

The MultiGround Lite package is an economical option that retains the technical capabilities of the MultiGround package, but with fewer object types included (e.g., finite soil volumes, non horizontally layered soils, and metallic plates are not available), and it does not include software packages that come with MultiGround+ or MultiGround, such as: AutoGroundDesign, AutoGrid Pro, SESTLC Pro, SESEnviroPlus, or SESShield-3D.