Neutral And Ground Bonding

The purpose of ground is for safety to ensure that a chassis and earth are at the same potential.

Neutral and ground bonding. This allows for the flow of short circuit currents to ground or between phases on ungrounded systems. This is directly evident when we take a look at the grounding and bonding requirements. If a bonding jumper is not installed from the equipment grounding conductor to the grounded neutral terminal of the derived system then a ground fault cannot be cleared and the metal parts of electrical equipment as well as metal piping and structure steel will become and remain energized providing the potential for electric shock as well as fires. Bonding electrical equipment metal raceways and enclosures provides a continuous equipment grounding conductor and an effective low impedance path.

In a properly designed circuit if a fault were to occur on the 120 volt outlet between the hot wire and the ground the current will flow through ground wire back to the main panel where it will move to the neutral wire via the neutral to ground bond up to the utility transformer back down the hot wire to the circuit breaker tripping the breaker. A ground rod is not the same thing as a neutral ground bond which is why youre still showing an open ground even after hooking to a ground rod. That is they have full continuity between each. Known as the system neutral conductor.

So you should be able to build my 2 g n bonding plug and create your single point g n bond which is exactly what the nec requires. The grounded circuits of machines need to have an effective return path from the machines to the power source in order to function properly. 2400v on a bonded ground and neutral would create a huge shock hazard between between a chassis and earth unless the ground was good enough to blow the fuse on the utility 2400v supply. The purpose statement of the nec section 901a states the purpose of this code is the practical safeguarding of persons and property from hazards arising from the use of electricity in other words it all comes back to protecting people and property from the inherent hazards of using electricity.

This means bonding in reference to grounding is how you achieve effective grounding. This is the conductor most often referred to as the ground conductor. Bonding of the neutral or grounded conductor to the earth ground or grounding conductor means that they are mechanically and electrically connected.