Impact of Volumetric Water Content and Porosity on Transmission Lines Submitted to Energization and Lightning Strikes

This paper investigates the impact of the improved Archie's model for soil resistivity considering the volumetric water content and porosity on the transient responses developed for energization and a lightning strike applied at only one phase of the line. In this study, an overhead transmission line located on saturated sandy soil modeled by different levels of volumetric water content and porosity was assumed. The transient responses were compared to those obtained adopting a high-resistivity dry sandy soil. Results have demonstrated that the transient voltages have a significant impact on the volumetric water content and porosity for this type of soil. The pronounced variation is seen in the induced voltages for both types of disturbances.