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    Purpose of Equipotential Bonding

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    Shubhankar Kundu
    Equipotential bonding connects exposed conductive parts and extraneous conductive parts to maintain substantially the same electrical potential. This helps prevent electric shock under fault conditions by reducing potential differences between accessible parts. Bonding connects all metalwork associated with electrical systems or not (like pipes and ducts) to the earth system. Proper equipotential bonding is important to ensure safety by preventing hazardous situations from indirect shocks or currents through unintended paths like building structures. Main bonding interconnects gas, water and electricity services where metallic at the building point of entry, while supplementary bonding reduces shock risks in areas like bathrooms with increased exposure.

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    Purpose of Equipotential Bonding

    Uploaded by

    Shubhankar Kundu
    227 views3 pages
    Equipotential bonding connects exposed conductive parts and extraneous conductive parts to maintain substantially the same electrical potential. This helps prevent electric shock under fault conditions by reducing potential differences between accessible parts. Bonding connects all metalwork associated with electrical systems or not (like pipes and ducts) to the earth system. Proper equipotential bonding is important to ensure safety by preventing hazardous situations from indirect shocks or currents through unintended paths like building structures. Main bonding interconnects gas, water and electricity services where metallic at the building point of entry, while supplementary bonding reduces shock risks in areas like bathrooms with increased exposure.

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    Purpose of Equipotential Bonding

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    Equipotential bonding connects exposed conductive parts and extraneous conductive parts to maintain substantially the same electrical potential. This helps prevent electric shock under fault conditions by reducing potential differences between accessible parts. Bonding connects all metalwork associated with electrical systems or not (like pipes and ducts) to the earth system. Proper equipotential bonding is important to ensure safety by preventing hazardous situations from indirect shocks or currents through unintended paths like building structures. Main bonding interconnects gas, water and electricity services where metallic at the building point of entry, while supplementary bonding reduces shock risks in areas like bathrooms with increased exposure.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    227 views3 pages

    Purpose of Equipotential Bonding

    Uploaded by

    Shubhankar Kundu
    Equipotential bonding connects exposed conductive parts and extraneous conductive parts to maintain substantially the same electrical potential. This helps prevent electric shock under fault conditions by reducing potential differences between accessible parts. Bonding connects all metalwork associated with electrical systems or not (like pipes and ducts) to the earth system. Proper equipotential bonding is important to ensure safety by preventing hazardous situations from indirect shocks or currents through unintended paths like building structures. Main bonding interconnects gas, water and electricity services where metallic at the building point of entry, while supplementary bonding reduces shock risks in areas like bathrooms with increased exposure.

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    The key takeaways are that equipotential bonding connects exposed metal parts at substantially the same electric potential to prevent electric shock. It is important for safety to bond gas, water and other metal pipes as well as building structures to the electrical grounding system.

    Equipotential bonding connects exposed conductive parts and extraneous conductive parts to maintain substantially the same electric potential and prevent dangerous potential differences that could cause electric shock under fault conditions. It is important for safety to ensure all metal parts are at nearly the same potential.

    Main bonding interconnects incoming metal gas, water and electricity services to the electrical ground. Supplementary bonding is required in locations with increased shock risk like bathrooms to bond exposed metal parts like baths and equipment.

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    Purpose of Equipotential Bonding

    Purpose of Equipotential bonding

    Equipotential bonding is essentially an electrical connection maintaining various exposed conductive


    parts and extraneous conductive parts at substantially the same potential.

    An earthed equipotential zone is one within which exposed conductive parts and extraneous conductive
    parts are maintained at substantially the same potential by bonding, such as that, under fault
    conditions, the difference in potential between simultaneously accessible exposed and extraneous
    conductive parts will not cause electric shock.

    Bonding is the practice of connecting all accessible metalwork – whether associated with the
    electrical installation (known as exposed metalwork) or not (extraneous metalwork) – to the system
    earth.

    In a building, there are typically a number of services other than electrical supply that employ metallic
    connections in their design. These include water piping, gas piping, HVAC ducting, and so on. A
    building may also contain steel structures in its construction. We have seen earlier in this chapter that
    when an earth fault takes place in an installation, the external conducting surfaces of the installation and
    the earth mass in the vicinity may attain higher potential with reference to the source earth.
    There is thus a possibility that a dangerous potential may develop between the conducting parts of non-
    electrical systems including building structures and the external conducting parts of electrical
    installations as well as the surrounding earth.

    This may give rise to undesirable current flow through paths that are not normally designed to carry
    current (such as joints in building structures) and also cause hazardous situations of indirect shock.

    It is therefore necessary that all such parts are bonded to the electrical service earth point of the
    building to ensure safety of occupants. This is called equipotential bonding.

    There are two aspects to equipotential bonding: the main bonding where services enter the building
    and supplementary bonding within rooms, particularly kitchens and bathrooms.

    Main bonding should interconnect the incoming gas, water and electricity service where these are
    metallic but can be omitted where the services are run in plastic, as is frequently the case nowadays.
    Internally, bonding should link any items, which are likely to be at earth potential or which may become
    live in the event of a fault and which are sufficiently large that they can contact a significant part of the
    body or can be gripped.

    Small parts, other than those likely to be gripped, are ignored because the instinctive reaction to a
    shock is muscular contraction, which will break the circuit.

    Bonding Metal Piping Systems

    In each electrical installation, main equipotential bonding conductors (earthing wires) are required to
    connect to the main earthing terminal for the installation of the following:

    Metal water service pipes


    Metal gas installation pipes
    Other metal service pipes and ducting
    Metal central heating and air-conditioning systems
    Exposed metal structural parts of the building
    Lightning protection systems.

    It is important to note that the reference above is always to metal pipes. If the pipes are made of
    plastic, they need not be main bonded.

    If the incoming pipes are made of plastic but the pipes within the electrical installation are made of
    metal, the main bonding must be carried out, the bonding being applied on the customer side of any
    meter, main stopcock or insulating insert and of course to the metal pipes of the installation.

    Such bonding is also necessary between the earth conductors of electrical systems and those of
    separately derived computer power supply systems, communication, signal and data systems and
    lightning protection earthing of a building.

    Many equipment failures in sensitive computing and


    Many equipment failures in sensitive computing and
    communication equipment are attributable to the insistence
    of the vendors to keep them separated from the electrical
    service earth. Besides equipment failures, such a practice
    also poses safety hazards particularly when lightning
    discharges take place in the vicinity.

    In such cases, large potential difference can arise for very


    short periods between metal parts of different services
    unless they are properly bonded. Some of the case studies in
    a later chapter deal with this issue.

    If the incoming services are made of plastic and the piping


    within the building is of plastic, then no main bonding is
    required. If some of the services are of metal and some are
    plastic, then those that are of metal must be main bonded.

    Supplementary or additional equipotential bonding (earthing)


    is required in locations of increased shock risk. In domestic
    premises, the locations identified as having this increased
    shock risk are rooms containing a bath or shower
    (bathrooms) and in the areas surrounding swimming pools.

    There is no specific requirement to carry out supplementary Equipotential bonding terminal for
    bathroom (OBO)
    bonding in domestic kitchens, washrooms and lavatories that
    do not have a bath or shower. That is not to say that
    supplementary bonding in a kitchen or washroom is wrong,
    but it is not necessary.

    For plastic pipe installation within a bathroom, the plastic pipes do not require supplementary bonding,
    and metal fittings attached to these plastic pipes also would not require supplementary bonding.
    However, electrical equipment still does require to be bonded and if an electric shower or radiant
    heater is fitted, they will require supplementary bonding as well.

    Supplementary bonding is carried out to the earth terminal of equipment within the bathroom with
    exposed conductive part. A supplementary bond is not run back to the main earth. Metal window
    frames are not to be supplementary bonded unless they are electrically connected to the metallic
    structure of the building.

    Metal baths supplied by metal pipes do not require supplementary bonding if all the pipes are bonded
    and there is no other connection of the bath to earth.

    All bonding connections must be accessible and labeled:

    SAFETY OF ELECTRICAL CONNECTION – DO NOT REMOVE!

    Resource: Grounding, bonding, shielding and surge protection – G. Vijayaraghavan


    (Buy this book at Amazon)

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