Bare ground in conduit
- Thread starter jimej4
- Start date
- Status
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
No, assuming that you are asking about the equipment grounding conductor and not about the grounded conductor.
eric9822
Senior Member
- Location
- Camarillo, CA
- Occupation
- Electrical and Instrumentation Tech
Agree with Don, some job specs prohibit it though.
SG-1
Senior Member
- Location
- Ware Shoals, South Carolina
During a fault the bare can arc & spark to the rigid conduit causing damage to the ungrounded & grounded conductors in multible places that may not have happened with an insulated EGC.
M4gery
Senior Member
If the bare EGC and pipe were bonded at both ends, would you have arcing between them?
brother
Senior Member
What code article is that? other than it not being manufactured/made in solid larger than 10.
itsunclebill
Member
- Location
- CO
- Occupation
- 99% Retired Electrical Contractor
The article is 310.3
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Contractor
I use #4 solid all the time. You just can't put it in a raceway except as a sleeve.
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Contractor
I believe you have to bond both ends if it is a GEC in metal conduit.
M4gery
Senior Member
Yes, so would it really arc??
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Contractor
Supposedly if the conduit is bonded it will prevent the choke effect. Don't ask me what it is but here is a little info from our forum on the choke effect.
JJWalecka
Senior Member
- Location
- New England
I was under the assumtion that, under a fault condition, a bare conductor would literally be cut in half at the piont in penetrates an unbonded raceway.
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
That is possible where very high AC currents are flowing on a single conductor (no other conductors in the same raceway) installed in a ferrous raceway.
The only single conductor that is permitted to be installed in a ferrous raceway by the code is a grounding electrode conductor.
The issue does not occur when you install all of the circuit conductor and the EGC in the same raceway.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
If they are bonded together they are the same potential - why should they arc?
TOOL_5150
Senior Member
- Location
- bay area, ca
M4gery
Senior Member
That's what I've been asking...
- Location
- Massachusetts
There would be a difference of potential between the bare EGC and the conduit during fault conditions.
If that was enough to make a damaging arc is a crap shoot in my opinion.
If that was enough to make a damaging arc is a crap shoot in my opinion.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Would it be a big enough difference that it will cause a high amount of current to flow through any arc that does occur? The voltage will drop in a great quantity from the fault back to the source, but with a bare conductor in contact frequently inside a metal raceway the potential is probably very limited. - That is exactly what happens in an AC cable with the aluminum bonding wire, if there was very much arcing between that small bond wire and the cable jacket it would not survive fault events.
Also the same would be true for any other grounded conductive object in contact with the metal raceway.
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