Furse® Earthing & lightning protection
Quality solutions for safeguarding people, structures and services
Furse® Earthing & Lightning Protection provides a complete solution for safeguarding against lightning risk. From our own designed and manufactured products, through to risk assessment and systems design advice, Furse offers a renowned total solution for earthing and lightning protection.
Furse® Earthing & Lightning Protection
Our reach & expertise
Furse® Earthing & Lightning Protection is part of ABB’s Installation
Products division.
With a heritage of over 130 years, the Furse® brand is synonymous with earthing and lightning protection, and is recognised worldwide for its Total Solution.
The Furse Total Solution incorporates all customer needs for earthing & lightning protection, including:
- Structural lightning protection systems
- Earthing for lightning protection, power and telecommunications systems
- Transient overvoltage protection
- Customer project consultations, technical guidance and system design
The Total Solution delivers the most complete and effective protection against lightning and earth fault current risk, both safeguarding life and ensuring continuous, normal operation of electrical and electronic systems.
Acquired by the ABB Group in 2012, and benefittingfrom ABB’s wider network, Furse® Earthing & Lightning Protection has now become an established quality provider of earthing and lightning protection, with products specified and installed in many prestigious projects globally.
Why choose Furse products and services?
Being an integral part of ABB reinforces our commitment to quality, service and to providing solutions which deliver safety and protection of people, structures and electrical services within the built environment.
Furse products and services aim to deliver customer value in key areas:
- Reliability & ease of installation
Furse products are manufactured from high quality materials within an ISO 9001 environment, to ensure long lasting performance, and are designed for easiest possible installation. - Convenience & support
Furse products are readily available through our network of distributors, and our sales are supported both locally and globally by technical guidance and support. - Expertise & experience
Our time served technical engineers provide specific advice on customers’ earthing and lightning protection concerns, and can provide drawings and system designs to any recognised standard.
The value of earthing & lightning protection
Lightning is one of nature’s most powerful and destructive phenomena. Lightning strikes present a real and significant threat to life, to the structures in which we live and work, and to the electronic systems which support us in our daily lives.
Lightning can have devastating consequences:
- Direct lightning strikes damage structures, and create fire, explosion and electric shock hazards.
- Indirect lightning (up to a kilometre away) creates transient overvoltages which degrade electronic systems and disrupt essential services.
The effects of a direct strike are obvious and immediately apparent – buildings damaged, trees blown apart, personal injuries and even loss of life.
However, the secondary effects of lightning – the short duration, high voltage spikes called transient overvoltages – can, and do, cause equally catastrophic, if less visually obvious, damage to electronic systems within structures.
The need for a Total Solution
National and International lightning protection standards now stress the need for a comprehensive solution encompassing both structural lightning and electronic systems protection using Surge Protection Devices (SPDs).
Simply put, a structural lightning protection system cannot and will not protect electronic systems from lightning currents and transient overvoltages.
Earthing standards demand critical safety of the electrical installation and the personnel at site. Both quality of design and product material are paramount.
This is why we advocate our Total Solution to earthing and lightning protection – an approach which delivers effective life safety, together with long lasting, reliable protection of a structure and the electronic systems within.
Introduction
Earthing & Lightning Protection with over 130 years of expertise
For all our customers, the Furse Total Solution approach to earthing & lightning protection is the leading solution for all project types worldwide.
Oil & Gas/petrochemical
- Offshore platforms & oil fields
- Gas & oil refineries
- Pipelines
- Petrochemical processing
Renewable energies
- Solar/PV farms
- Wind turbines
- Hydro-power stations
- EV Charging
High tech & industrial
- Pharmaceutical factories
- High tech manufacturing & semi-conductor plants
- Telecoms stations, exchanges & transmission towers
- IT Parks and Technoparks
- Heavy industry including steel, cement, glass fibre & synthetics
- Data centres
Utilities
- Power stations (coal, gas, nuclear)
- Electricity substations
- Overhead transmission lines
- Waste water treatment facilities
- Desalination plants
Commercial construction
- Landmark commercial projects
- Financial services institutions
- Convention & exhibition centres
- Office blocks
- Stock exchanges & trade centres
- Commercial centres, showrooms & retail units
Government & public sector
- Central government buildings
- Embassies & official residences
- Local authority premises
- Police stations
- Hospitals & healthcare facilities
- Technical colleges & universities
Rail & infrastructure
- National railways
- City metro & light rail systems
- Airports & airport terminal expansions
- Subsea tunnels
Sports & recreation
- Hotels & resorts
- Sports facilities & training grounds
- Theatres & opera houses
- Shopping malls
Residential
- High rise residential towers & apartment blocks
- Condominiums
- Housing development projects
Cultural & heritage
- Historical sites
- Mosques, churches & cathedrals
- National libraries
- Monuments
Introduction
Earthing
Earthing of the lightning protection system, as well as the electrical installation, is paramount for safety, to protect life, electrical equipment and critical electronics from electrical system faults and lightning currents.
In the vast majority of countries, this need for earthing is clearly stipulated through health and safety regulations, with implementation driven by approved standards.
These standards cover a wide range of situations,
including earthing and equipotential bonding of:
- Lightning protection systems
- Low voltage electrical systems
- Telecommunications systems
- High voltage electrical systems (over 1 kVac)
Earthing is essentially the connection of the electrical system and connected electrical equipment, as well as the structural lightning protection system (where installed), to the general mass of earth using suitably sized conductor.
Equipotential bonding is the interconnection of all metalwork in a structure to ensure, in the event of a current passing to earth, there is no risk of arcing or electric shock hazard.
A good quality earthing system is designed to:
- Prevent risk to life, by removing the risk of
electric shock - Protect connected electrical and electronic
equipment from damage due to the passage
of fault, earth leakage or lightning currents - Provide a low impedance path to earth, to
ensure effective operation of overcurrent
protective devices in the event of a fault - Ensure connected equipment remains at the
same electrical potential - Remove risk of overheating of conductors
under fault conditions so there is no risk of
insulation breakdown - Ensure people on or near substations are not
at risk from step, touch or transfer potentials
It is essential for safety and business continuity. Poor quality earthing not only risks damage and downtime to equipment, but also the risk of electrocution and loss of life.
Earthing design
Power earthing design, especially for high voltage installations such as substations, is a complex process requiring assessment and understanding of local soil conditions, existing overhead/underground conductors and metalwork, and prospective earth fault current duration and magnitude at the installation.
Our technical team provides consultancy on such projects and undertakes high voltage earthing design using CDEGS software.
Designed earthing systems utilise our high quality copper earthing tapes, our earth rods, backfills, mechanical clamps and FurseWELD® exothermic welding system, to ensure a safe and long term earthing installation.
Introduction
Lightning protection & power earthing services
Our technical team has over 100 years’ accumulated knowledge & experience of developing lightning protection and power earthing solutions, and designs systems to British and other recognised standards.
Lightning protection services
The Furse technical team actively participates in the development of National and International standards for lightning protection, and offers the ideal starting point for customers confronted by the challenges found in complex lightning protection projects.
Our experienced engineers can provide support on all aspects of structural lightning protection and transient overvoltage protection, including:
- Risk assessment of structures in compliance
with the latest standards - Lightning protection system designs to meet
client specifications
In order for us to design a structural and/or transient overvoltage lightning protection system, we need the following information:
- Design standard, e.g. BS EN 62305 (or other
National Standard for 62305), IEC 62305,
NFPA 780 or UL 96A - A dimensioned roof plan & external elevations
- Construction details, e.g. steelwork, reinforced
concrete, roofing materials, etc. - A single line diagram indicating voltage and
current for each electrical system, e.g. power,
data, telephones, fire alarms, CCTV - Details of essential equipment, e.g. network
servers, PLC controllers
Power earthing services
Power earthing design of installations over 1 kVac is a specialist area of business, requiring in-depth understanding of the principles of electrical safety and key knowledge of a range of earthing standards.
Our engineers can provide important guidance on power earthing, including:
- Power earthing system design
- Supply of comprehensive drawings
- Earth resistance measurement & soil resistivity
surveys - Earth modelling analysis
To design a power earth electrode system, we need the following information:
- Design standard, e.g. BS EN 50522, BS 7430,
BS 7354, ANSI IEEE Std 80, EATS 41-24 etc. - A dimensioned site plan and overall electrical
single line diagram - Soil resistivity survey results
- Earth fault current magnitude
- Earth fault current duration
Soil resistivity surveys
A comprehensive soil resistivity survey is key to creating an effective earthing system, as inadequate or erroneous soil resistivity readings are likely to result in a flawed design.
Earth modelling analysis
Earth modelling analysis uses state-of-the-art technology to determine the step and touch voltages, earth potential rise and hot/cold site classification of the site generated by the initial design.
Earthing and lightning protection is a progressive industry underpinned by an adherence to British, European and International standards, which determine both the design and implementation of systems, and the control of product quality.
These National and International standards are regularly updated making it important to keep abreast of latest developments.
Furthermore, given the complexity of these standards, confusion and misinterpretation can easily lead to project delays, budget overruns and costly extra time on site.
We aim to help customers to avoid these risks, fully supporting Furse product sales with high quality technical support.
We’re here to help
We offer regular training seminars to improve understanding of earthing, lightning protection and transient overvoltage protection standards and practices.
Seminars are held at the ABB Furse Nottingham, UK office, and at other convenient locations/ customer premises – please contact your local ABB representative for further information.
Furse technical guidance
Primary in our supporting literature for lightning protection is the Furse Guide to IEC/BS EN 62305 – considered indispensable reading for anybody working in the lightning protection industry today.
Complete with easy to understand illustrations and design examples, this Guide helps to explain in clear and concise terms the requirements of IEC/BS EN 62305 and provides the reader with the necessary information to enable identification of all risks involved and to assess the required level of protection in accordance with this standard.
