cslater
Structural
- Jun 27, 2007
- 46
I am supporting the construction of a Catenary (overhead wire) lightning protection system over buildings that store explosive materials. The design has a grounding system made up of a buried ground loop (2' deep) with a number of 10' driven ground rods connected at certain intervals.
We've found that the soil at some of the buildings turns to mixed sandstone and dirt at about 30" depth, such that driving ground rods is impossible. We've tried digging with a rock bit, but the mix of rock and dirt is causing that to fail as well.
As I've done research, and asked around, I get the impression that the ground loop should be sufficient without ground rods, and that we can verify that by doing Ohm tests of just the loop. However, I have not been able to get a definitive answer on whether this is the case, and this is outside my expertise.
Any insight that can be provided would be extremely helpful.
We've found that the soil at some of the buildings turns to mixed sandstone and dirt at about 30" depth, such that driving ground rods is impossible. We've tried digging with a rock bit, but the mix of rock and dirt is causing that to fail as well.
As I've done research, and asked around, I get the impression that the ground loop should be sufficient without ground rods, and that we can verify that by doing Ohm tests of just the loop. However, I have not been able to get a definitive answer on whether this is the case, and this is outside my expertise.
Any insight that can be provided would be extremely helpful.