Prelude to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers’ (IEEE) paper
Mr. Donald W. Zipse offered a very controversial technical paper on equipotential planes stating that the National Electrical Code sections 547 on Agriculture Buildings and 680 Swimming Pools were INCORRECT when they state that equipotential planes “ . . . prevent a difference in voltage from developing within the plane.” In addition, Mr. Zipse also states in his paper that four agriculture professors were incorrect in their three papers published in the early 1980s. They did not understand the difference between IEEE Standard 80 Substation Grounding and Step-Touch potentials based on high levels of fault current for extremely short time and steady state continuous flowing stray current of very low magnitude.
The IEEE’s Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Committee at first rejected Mr. Zipse’s paper offering. However, cooler heads prevailed stating that the IEEE was the place for new ideas and discussion. The I&CPS Committee went out to 23 persons who were opponents in court cases or were utility employees or agriculture professors requesting that they rebut Mr. Zipse’s paper.
Three papers were submitted in rebuttal. The first was authored by one of the original professors, Robert J. Gustafson and co-author LaVerne E. Stetson. The other time slot had two papers by employees of Alabama Power, Keith Wallace and Don Parker. The Alabama papers were no more than regurgitation of the Agriculture Red book, Document 696 and should be totally disregarded.
Dr. Gustafson completely disregards the multigrounded neutral electrical distribution system circuit that connects the primary neutral with solid copper conductors to the equipotential plane. It is this circuit that supplies approximately 50 percent of the stray current flowing in swimming pools and dairy farms. Note that EPRI, the Electrical Power Research Institute, the utilities brain trust, state that 40 to 60 percent of the return neutral current on multigrounded neutral electrical distribution system circuits returns over the earth.
Between the draft of Zipse’s paper and the presentation Mr. Zipse suggested to Mr. Neubauer, Master Electrician who makes all the electrical measurements, to switched to iron rebar wire which was used for the test conductors and iron plates for contact with the floor, thus eliminating any suggestion of galvanic cell generating the direct current. The section on direct current was inserted to show that three actions were taking place simultaneously, galvanic cell action and rectification of the ac by rebar in concrete as noted in IEEE Standard 80 and the flow of harmful alternating current in the equipotential plane.
What Dr. Gustafson completely ignores is the alternating current measurements that were recorded that harm dairy cows causing decreased milk production and injury and death to the cows. What is not in the paper is last week we disconnected the phase and neutral and the telephone grounds to a dairy, and still had current flowing over earth and into the equipotential plane and into the cow proving stray current flows over and through the earth in sufficient magnitude to harm a cow or human.
Click here to view the IEEE paper
Copyright Material IEEE Paper No. ICPS-06
Donald W. Zipse, P.E. Life Fellow, IEEE Electrical Forensics, LLC
don.zip@ieee.org
