See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/3967748

Simulation of lightning surges on tower transmission using PSCAD/EMTDC: A

comparative study

Conference Paper · February 2002

DOI: 10.1109/SCORED.2002.1033149 · Source: IEEE Xplore

CITATIONS READS

5 1,311

5 authors, including:

Zafirah Zakaria S. M. Bashi

Open University Malaysia Al-Hadba University College
14 PUBLICATIONS   14 CITATIONS    132 PUBLICATIONS   680 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Nashiren Mailah Mohd Ridzal Othman

54 PUBLICATIONS   225 CITATIONS   
Tenaga Nasional Berhad
14 PUBLICATIONS   89 CITATIONS   
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

It is a separate project View project

FACT design and Applications View project

All content following this page was uploaded by S. M. Bashi on 21 May 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

2002 Student Conference on Research and Development Proceedings, Shah Alam, Malaysia

SCOReD2002

SIMULATION OF LIGHTNING SURGES ON TOWER TRANSMISSION

USING PSCAD/EMTDC : A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Z. Zakaria*, S.M. Bashi*, N.F. Mailah*, M.R. Othman**, H. Osman**

*
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering,Universiti Putra Malaysia
43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
**
Tenaga National Research Sdn.Bhd.
Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

ABSTRACT - This paper describes the analytical and propagation velocity inside the tower was almost at the
the experimental responses of the surges strike on the speed of light.
transmission line towers. A new method of calculating Kawai [7] reported another experimental
transmission tower surge response has been proposed. value for actual transmission towers. He used a direct
It has been found that the tower surge response method to measure tower surge impedance. The value
calculated by the proposed method has a close for this impedance at the top of the tower was
agreement with the measured tower surge response measured to be 100 ohms. His experimental results
obtained from scale model and field tests. Without the showed that the tower response to a vertical injection
use of simulation program, this topic might be difficult current is different from the response to a horizontal
to understand. PSCAD/EMTDC has been selected as current injection. Measured propagation velocity inside
the software used to generate the appropriate data the tower was 70%-80% of the speed light.
needed to graphically demonstrate this phenomenon. Ishii et al [8]and Narita et al [9] reported field
measurements of full-scale tower impedance using
1. INTRODUCTION direct method. These measurements were performed
using the techniques of inclined and horizontal current
Tower surge impedance is one of the most injections. Both of them proposed surge impedance of
important factors in analyzing lightning performances the tower based on the EMTP. Propagation velocity
on transmission lines [1]. Jordon [2] had proposed the inside the tower was assumed to be at the speed of
first theoretical formulation for tower surge light.
impedance. The aim of this study is practically based
on Neumann’s induction formula, which states that the 2. TOWER SURGE IMPEDANCE
current distribution on the transmission tower was
uniform from the bottom to the top of the tower. The surge characteristics of transmission
However the effect of return stroke current is not taken tower have been measured using 500kV Tenaga
into consideration. The tower is approximated as a Nasional Berhad’s tower (tower height 67m) as shown
vertical cylinder having a height equal to that of the in Figure 1. This measurement has not considered the
tower, and the radius equal to the mean equivalent effects of the ground wires and power lines.
radius of the tower. Propagation velocity inside of the
tower is assumed to be of the speed of light.
Beside the modeling methods, many
experimental and theoretical studies had been
performed on the surge response characteristics of
transmission towers. There are many reports on the
techniques used to estimate the tower surge
impedance. Theoretical formulation of tower surge
impedance based on the electromagnetic field theory
had been proposed by Janischewskyj [3], Wagner and
Hileman [4] and Okumura and Kijima [5], which
considered the effects of the vector potential generated
by the injection current into the tower. Propagation
velocity inside the tower was assumed to be of the
speed of light.
Breuer et al [6] had carried out actual
measurements of the surge impedance of actual
transmission towers. In his work, a reflection method
was adopted, and an impedance value of 165 ohms was
obtained at the top of the tower. The measured Fig. 1. Structure drawing of 500 kV Tower.

0-7803-7565-3/02/$17.00 ©2002 IEEE.

The calculation of average value of the tower surge
impedance has been carried out by implementing the
formulas proposed by the introduction manual to
PSCAD/EMTDC and CIGRE [10]. In this calculation
the tower radius R has been chosen as Model (1), and
the tower was simulated by an inverted cone as shown
in Figure 2.
Fig. 2.
2.1 For A Vertical Cylindrical Conductor
The theoretical value of the vertical cylinder
impedance has been given in the literature [10] in a
different form: -
i) CIGRE formula of lower vertical cylinder is given
as: -
Zo = 60 ln [cot 0.5 {tan -1 (R avg/h)} (1)
Where (see figure 2) :
h = tower height (m)
Ravg = average tower radius (m)
= (r1 h2 +r2 h + r3 h1)/h
r1 = radius at mid point h1 tower (m)
r2 = radius at h2 from the mid point (m)
r3 = tower’s base radius (m)
ii) PSCAD/EMRDC formula for upper vertical
cylinder is given as :-
Zo = 132.8 log 10 (2h/d) + 45 d/h – 60 (2)
Where:
h = height of the tower (m)
d = diameter of the conductor (m)
2.2 For A Horizontal Cylindrical Conductor
The theoretical surge impedance ZO ,for the
horizontal upper, middle and lower cylinders can be
approximated to be :-
Zo = (377/2π) * ln (2h/r) (3)
Where:
h = height of conductor above the ground (m)
r = radius of conductor (m)
From the calculation, the surge impedances
for the tower are :-
1. For the lower vertical cylinder conductor using
formula (1) is :- Zo = 136.61 ohm.
2. For the upper vertical cylinder conductor using
formula (2) is :- Zo = 55.883 ohm.
3. For the horizontal upper, middle and lower cross
arm using formula (3) is:- Zo = 172.86 ohm
3. SURGE RESPONSE CHARACTERISTICS OF
ACTUAL TOWER
3.1 Measurement Conditions
Figure 3 shows the measurement conditions
and the arrangement of measuring equipment. The
tower under measurement is the 500kV steel tower
with an overall height of 62.8m and a base width of
10.8m. The ground wires were insulated from no. 1
tower by insulators to avoid reflection at this position,
since the span between no. 2 and no. 3 tower is short.
All the phase conductors were directly connected to
no. 1 and no. 4 tower to reduce the noise, which may
affect the measurement.
A 50 ohm coaxial cable of 300m in length
was used to inject current into no. 3 tower from a pulse
generator (PG) on the ground as seen in Figure 3. The
tower surge impedance is chosen at 115 ohms. The
sheath of the cable was left open at the tower end,
while it is connected to the earth at other end, where
the configuration is equivalent to as to set the PG on
the ground wire across the arm, as no external field
exists before the traveling wave within the coaxial
cable from the PG reaches the tower top no. 4. Thus
current injection is similar to Kawai [7] and is
classified a direct method (no other lines for
measurement were installed).
The injected current was measured by the
current shunt and the voltage across the current strings
was measured by a 10K ohm resistive voltage divider.
These signals were converted into light signals and
were transmitted to waveform recording devices on the
ground through optical wave-guides. Bundle fibers
were used for the optical wave-guides, which resulted
in the change of sensitivity after the wave-guide was
disconnected and reconnected to the transducer.
Therefore the sensitivity was calibrated before and
after each measurement by a calibrator incorporated in
the optical signal transmission system and the accuracy
was maintained within 2% of error. In a measurement
without connecting ground wires to the tower, the
voltage between an isolated ground wire and the cross
arm was also measured. The frequency range of the
measuring system was from DC up to 12 MHz, which
was limited by the electro-optical signal converter.
3.2 Recorded Waveforms
Figure 4 shows the resulted waveform when
the current was injected at the top point of the tower.
In the case of steep front wave, a PG was sent out at a
neat rectangular waveform into a 50-ohm connecting
cable. The resulted waveform, which was measured at
the top point of the tower, was found to be deformed
which can be seen in Figure 4(a). Figure 4(b) shows
various waveforms calculated for conventional and
new tower models shown for comparison purpose. It is
clear that the calculated results agree accurately with
the measured results and the proposed model can
reproduce the effect of the direction of the injected
current line. This shows that from the experiment and
theory, the setup current injection line has a great
effect on the surge response. This measured value of
the propagation velocity along the towers is almost
80%-90% speed of the light. The fact that the
propagation velocity depends on the structures such as
the cross arms, horizontal elements and inclined
elements are clearly shown here.

Figure 3. Setup for lightning surge response measurements

500 kV Tow er

Ea
+500

+360

+220 A
+80

-60

-200 0 2e-006 4e-006 6e-006 8e-006 1e-005

Tim e (sec)

500 kV Tow er

Eb
+350

b)
+270

+190

+110

+30

-50 0 2e-006 4e-006 6e-006 8e-006 1e-005

Ti
m e (sec)

500 kV Tow er

Ec
+500

+380

+260
c)
+140

+20

-100 0 2e-006 4e-006 6e-006 8e-006 1e-005

Tim e (sec)

Measured waveforms Calculated waveforms

Figure 4. Calculated and measured waveform

(a) Upper phase insulator voltage
(b) Middle phase insulator voltage
(c) Lower phase insulator voltage
 4. CONCLUSIONS
This paper reports on the results of
measurements and calculations of the lightning surge
response characteristics of a 500 kV transmission
tower. Based on the above calculation, a new
multistory tower model will be developed to be used in
the multistory conductor lightning surge analysis by
EMTDC. This analysis enables us to predict the
waveform of each insulator voltage, which is useful in
determining the phase. Measurements of the tower
surge response were carried out. It is known from the
measurements and calculations that the actual surge
velocity in the tower is closed to the speed of light.
From the comparisons between the calculated results
obtained using the proposed model and the measured
results, it is clearly shows the direction of the current.
Injection line significantly affects the surge
characteristics of the transmission tower. This fact is
important in understanding the surge response of the
tower.
5. REFERENCES
[1] Hideki Motoyama and Hiroji Matsubara,
“Analytical and Experimental Study on Surge
Response Transmission Tower,’ IEEE Trans., PWRD,
vol 15, no 2, April 2000.
[2] C.A. Jordon, “Lightning Computations for
Transmission Lines with Overhead Ground Wires
Part II, ” General Electric Review, Vol 34, pp180-185,
1994.
[3] Janischewskyj,” Lightning Electric Characteristics
of first and subsequent return Strokes to a Tall Tower”,
Published in the Proceeding of 11th International
Symposium on high voltage Engineering ,Vol. 1, 467,
London, Aug 23-Aug 27 1999.
View publication stats
[4] C.F Wagner and A.R. Hileman, “A New Approach
to the Calculation of the Lightning Performance of
Transmission Lines , III-A Simplified Method Stroke
to Tower,” AIEE Trans. Vol 79, 1980, pp 589-603.
[5] K.Okumura and A. Kijima. “A method for
Computing Surge Impedance of Transmission Line
Tower by
Electromagnetic Field Theory,” IEE of Japan, Trans B,
Vol 105, pp 733-740, 1985.
[6] G Breuer, A.J, Schultz, R.H. Schlomann and W.S
Price, “ Field Studies of the Surge Response of a
345 kV Transmission Tower And Ground Wires,”
AIEE Trans., pt III vol 77, 1958, pp 1392-1396
[7] M. Kawai, “Studies of the Surge Response on a
Transmission Line Tower,” IEEE Trans, 1964 , PAS-
88, pp 30- 34.
[8] M. Ishii, T. Kawamura, T. Kouno, E. Ohsaki,K.
Murotani and T. Higuchi,” Multisory Transmission
Tower Model for Lightning Surge Analysis”, IEEE
Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 6 no. 3 , pp 1327-1335,
1991.
[9] Narita, Tomomi,Yamada, Takeshi, Mochizki,
Azuma, Zaima, Ishii, and Masaru ,” Observation of
Current Waveshapes of Lightning Strokes on
Transmission Towers”, IEEE Transactions on Power
Delivery , Vol. 15, Jan 2000, pp 429-435
[10] CIGRE Working Group 33.01, ” Guide to
Procedures for Estimating the Lightning Performance
of Transmission Lines, CIGRE Technical, Brochure
63, Oct. 1991.