Analysis of Bentonite AC and DC Performance Under Water Content and Chemical Content Variation for Grounding Applications

Soil resistivity can be reduced by adding additives. Bentonite is a material that is quite good for reducing soil resistivity. This material is also recommended as a low resistivity material in the IEEE 80-2000 standard. Indonesia has many sources of bentonite, one of which is in the Karangnunggal area, Tasikmalaya. In this research, an experiment was conducted on the characteristics of bentonite against DC and AC currents with different levels of water content and chemical content. From the experiments, it was found that in DC testing, the higher the water content and chemical content, the lower the resistivity obtained. Meanwhile from the AC testing, the higher the water content and chemical content for each variation, the lower the average resistivity of the AC. The resistivity trend towards log f for each similar test is for low frequencies, below 200 kHz (log f = 6.3) the average resistivity value obtained does not change much. Furthermore, for frequencies up to 10 MHz (log f = 7), the resistivity value increases and decreases again until a frequency of 13 MHz (log f = 7.13).