Finite-element study of the current field produced by grounding electrodes by means of a double analogy between fields

The aim of this paper is to show how it is possible to use a finite-element thermal package to analyze the current field produced by grounding electrodes. The study is based on the double analogy current field- electrostatic field and electrostatic field-thermal field. The methodology proposed is applied to electrodes whose formulae for calculating the grounding resistance are known. This allows the comparison of various types of grids, thus providing good information on the performance of both the grid used and the best number of elements.