A massively parallel BEM numerical model for grounding analysis in layered soils

Abstract

[Abstract] In the last years the authors have developed a numerical formulation based on the Boundary Element Method for the analysis of grounding systems embedded in uniform soils. This approach has been implemented in a CAD system that currently allows to analyze real grounding grids in real.time in personal computers. In this paper we present a numerical approach based on the boundary element method for grounding analysis in stratified soils which is a generalization of the previous one. The computational requirements for these models are noticeable higher, but the proposed formulation has been implemented in a high-perfomance parallel computer and the code has been applied to the analysis of several real grounding systems. We focus our attention in horizontally and vertically two layers soils and we discuss the results obtained in the application of the proposed method to some practical examples.