How are grounding and bonding different in electrical safety?

• A. Bonding connects conductive parts to reduce potential differences; grounding provides a path to earth to limit voltage and help safety devices operate
• B. Bonding creates a path to earth; grounding reduces potential differences
• C. Grounding and bonding do the same thing
• D. Bonding prevents moisture ingress

Answer: (A)

Grounding and bonding have distinct safety roles. Bonding keeps metallic parts that could become energized at the same electrical potential by creating low-resistance connections between them. This minimizes dangerous touch voltages if a fault occurs, because all bonded parts stay at roughly the same voltage and a person won’t feel a sudden shock as different metal surfaces touch.

Grounding provides a path to earth for fault currents and also establishes a stable reference to the earth. By linking the system to the ground, any fault current has a low-impedance route to earth, which helps protective devices like breakers or fuses detect the fault quickly and disconnect power, limiting voltage levels that can appear on equipment.

In practice, you bond exposed conductive parts (pipes, enclosures, equipment) to prevent dangerous differences in potential, while you ground the system to earth so fault currents can safely flow and protective devices operate.