During World War II, the U.S. Army required a grounding system for bomb storage vaults near Tucson and Flagstaff, Arizona.
The extremely dry soil conditions would have required hundreds of feet of rods to be driven into the earth to create a low impedance ground to protect the buildings from lightning strikes.
Ufer was given the task of finding a lower cost and more practical alternative to traditional copper rod grounds for these dry locations.
After the war, Ufer continued to test his grounding method, and his results were published in a paper presented at the IEEE Western Appliance Technical Conference in 1963.
[6] The grounding conductors must have sufficient cover by the concrete to prevent damage when dissipating high-current lightning strikes.
[7] A disadvantage of Ufer grounds is that the moisture in the concrete can flash into steam during a lightning strike or similar high energy fault condition.