30th International Conference on Lightning Protection - ICLP 2010
(Cagliari, Italy - September 13th -17th, 2010)
SHIELDING FORMULAS FOR WIRE-GRID STRUCTURES DURING AN
INDIRECT LIGHTNING STRIKE
Y. Du and M.L. Chen
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
beydu@inet.polyu.edu.hk
ABSTRACT
This paper investigated the shielding effect of a metallic
wire-grid structure found in modern buildings during an
indirect lightning stroke. An equivalent circuit approach
was employed to model the structure and nearby down
conductor and to calculate the induced current in the
structure. The resultant magnetic field inside the buildings
was evaluated. It is revealed that the geometric parameters
of the building structure, such as structure length/width,
grid length/width, and distance to nearby down conductors,
have a great impact on its shielding effect. Empirical
shielding formulas are provided for various situations.
General conclusions of the shielding characterizes for wire-
grid structures are presented finally.
1 INTRODUCTION
With the proliferation of electronic equipment in
modern buildings, a lightning protection system (LPS)
becomes indispensable as the electronic equipment is
vulnerable to lightning flashes and sensitive to lightning-
induced electromagnetic fields. A typical LPS consists of
air terminations, down conductors and earth terminations.
It is usually installed on the building to be protected, or
made using the natural metallic components inside a
building, such as the metalwork of the building structure
or the glass curtain wall. Such structural components may
carry the discharge current or the induced current during
a lighting flash, and generate impulse electromagnetic
fields within the building. To maximize the effectiveness
of a lightning protection system against the
electromagnetic effect, it is necessary to study the
lightning-induced electromagnetic field in the building
with the presence of the structural components.
The electromagnetic environment inside a building
during a direct lightning stroke has been studied
extensively [1-7]. Two different approaches have been
proposed to evaluate the shielding effect of a building
structure, that is, circuit approach [1-4] and field
approach [6-8]. In the circuit approach the structural
components are modeled as an equivalent electrical
network using inductances, capacitances and resistances.
The current distribution in the structure is determined
from the established circuit network equations,
subsequently the electromagnetic field inside the
building. In the field approach the field problem is
represented by a mathematical formulation derived from
Maxwell equations, such as the mixed-potential electric
field integral equation (EFIE). The method of moment is
then employed to evaluate the electromagnetic
environment inside a building. These methods have been
successfully applied to study the effects of a direct
lightning stroke to a wire-grid structure [9-11].
The electromagnetic field inside building during an
indirect lightning stroke is primarily determined by the
discharge current in the lightning channel or the
dedicated down conductor. The magnetic field can,
however, be affected greatly by the induced current in the
building structure. The influence of the metallic structure
to the resultant magnetic field is defined as ‘shielding
effect’ in an IEC standard, and a series of evaluation
formulas have been presented in [13]. These formulas,
however, were derived from the assumption that the
magnetic field radiated for the lightning channel was a
parallel plane wave, and are only available when the
distance between the building and discharge channel is
much large. When the distance is small, such as in the
case of an isolated down conductor mounted on the
façade of a building, the formulas in [13] are not valid.
This paper presents an investigation into magnetic
shielding by the structural components of a modern
building against the lightning-induced magnetic field.
The lightning-induced magnetic field results from an
indirect lighting stroke to a dedicated down conductor. In
this paper an equivalent circuit approach is employed to
study the shielding effect of the building structure. A
steady region of shielding factor within the structure is
introduced first. Shielding effect of the building structure
are characterized against geometric parameters of the
structure. Empirical shielding formulas are provided for
various situations. General conclusions on the shielding
effect of a building structure are presented finally.
2 LIGHTNING PROTECTION SYSTEMS
In general, there are two kinds of lightning protection
systems installed in modern buildings. In the first case,
the air termination is connected to the structural
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components of a building, such as the inter-connected
reinforcement bars embedded in concrete columns,
beams and floor. This structural metalwork is intended to
drain the lightning discharge current from the air
termination down to the earth termination network, as
seen in Figure 1(a). In the second case, an dedicated
down conductor, which is electrically isolated from the
building structure, is connected to the air termination for
draining the lightning current to the Earth, as seen in
Figure 2. The isolated down conductor is usually
mounted on the façade of a building (external down
conductor), or installed in the service core in the building
(internal down conductor). This down conductor is not
allowed to connect to the structural work of the building.
In this paper, the magnetic field environment in the
building protected with isolated down conductors is
addressed.
(a) Direct stroke (b) Indirect stroke
Figure 1. Buildings subject to a lightning stroke
The case shown in Figure 1(b) is similar to that in
Figure 2. A nearby building is struck by lightning. The
discharge current is drained to the Earth via the down
conductor, which is electrically isolated from the
structural work of the building of concern. The resultant
magnetic field in the building of concern is contributed
by both the discharge current in the nearby building and
the induced current in the building of concern. For
simplicity, the down conductor of a nearby building can
be treated as the isolated down conductor in the case
shown in Figure 2.
3 MODELING AND SIMULATION
PROCEDURE
Figure 2 shows a reprehensive configuration of the
building structure and the external isolated down
conductor situated at a corner of the building. The
indirect lightning is modeled as a lightning stroke
terminated the isolated down conductor. This conductor
is dedicated to carry the lightning return stroke current,
which has the waveform of 8/20us for the first stroke
according to an IEC standard [13].
The building structure is a typical wire-grid structure or
a Faraday’s cage similar to that used in [13]. It is made of
interconnected reinforcement bars embedded in columns
and beams of a building. As seen in Figure 2, the
structure is characterized by the length of L, the width of
L and height of H. It has the grid size of W x W. The
distance between the isolated down conductor and the
nearest structure corner is denoted by D. This wire-grid
structure is not intended to carry the discharge current. It
may carry the induced current due to electromagnetic
coupling from the isolated down conductor.
l
w
h
(a) Configuration of a lightning protection system
z x L
L
D
(b) Diagonal line for the evaluation of shielding factor
Figure 2. Configuration of an indirect lightning stroke model
It is known that the radiation field is dominant if an
observation point is far form the lightning channel. In the
vicinity of the lightning channel (e.g., with the distance
less than 100m) the induction field dominates the total
magnetic field [12]. Thus a circuit approach is adopted in
this paper to study the resultant lightning-induced
magnetic field inside the building. In this approach the
isolated down conductor is modeled as a vertical
conductor, and the structure of the building as a
conductor cage. The self and mutual inductances,
capacitances and resistances of all these conductors are
calculated to form an equivalent circuit network. The
current distribution in the equivalent network is evaluated
numerically. The lightning-induced magnetic field inside
the building structure is then calculated.
In order to study the shielding effect of the wire-grid
structure, Shielding Factor (SF) is introduced, and is
defined by
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 B1
SF = × 100% (1)
Bo
where B1 and B0 are the magnetic fields in the presence
and absence of the building structure, respectively. Note
that B0 is solely contributed by the current in the isolated
down conductor shown in Figure 2, while B1 is
contributed by both the current in the down conductor
and induced current in the building structure. Generally
speaking, SF varies with location of the observation point
within the building. For simplicity of the discussion in
this paper, SF is evaluated on the diagonal line shown in
Figure 2. It is plotted or expressed against the x-
coordinate of the observation point on this diagonal line.
(a) SF on a plane
4 REGION OF SHIELDING FACTOR OF A 60
WIRE-GRID STRUCTURE
SF curve
50
It was revealed in a preliminary study that the shielding Fitting line

effect of a wire-grid structure varies with not only its 40

geometrical parameters, but also the position of an
observation point within the structure. To simplify the SF (%) 30

discussion, the pattern of shielding factor within the wire- 20

grid structure was investigated first.
The structure of concern has the dimensions of 10

length L = 10m , height H = 40m, and grid width W = 1m. 0

This structure was represented by an equivalent electrical -5 -3 -1 1 3 5
circuit, and the induced current in the structure was x (m)

evaluated, subsequently the lightning-induced magnetic (b) SF along a diagonal line

field in the structure. Figure 3(a) shows the shielding Figure 3. Distribution of shielding factor at the height of 5m
factor on a plane at the height of 5m above the ground. It above the ground
is found that SF fluctuates significantly along the external 30

wall of a building. The resultant magnetic field near the

25
column is enhanced significantly.
However, in the central region SF changes in a 20
relatively smooth manner. Figure 3(b) shows the SF
SF (%)

curve on a diagonal line on a plane at the same height, 15

which is indicated by a dash line in Figure 2. It is noted 10

from the figure that the SF curve has a shape of saddle. In
the central region with the distance of W to the two 5

opposite structure corners, the SF curve can be

0
approximately represented with a straight line. 0 10 20 30 40
Figure 4 shows the SF curve along a vertical line z (m )

situated in the central point of the structure (x=0 and
y=0). It is found in the figure that SF remains constant if
the distance to the roof of the building is 10m or above.
It, therefore, is concluded that a three-dimensional region
can be identified in the structure. In this region SF varies
moderately, and can be approximated by a straight line.
This region is called the steady region, and is limited by
horizontal boundaries [ − L 2 + W , L 2 − W ] and vertical
boundaries of [ 0, H − 10m] . It is known that in this region
a moderate shielding effect is observed, and the shielding
factor is predictable. This region is good for installation
of sensitive equipment in modern buildings.
Figure 4. Distribution of shielding factor along a vertical line in
the center of the building
5 SHIELDING CHARACTERISTICS OF A
WIRE-GRID STRUCTURE
It is noted from the preliminary study that shielding
factor varies with structure parameters, such as structure
length L, height H and grid width W. In this section, the
impact of these parameters on the shielding factor is
investigated via computer simulations. The observation
line is the diagonal line from one corner of the structure
to opposite corner at the height of 5m above the ground.
The structure of concern has the reference height of 40m,

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reference length of 20m, and reference grid width of 2m. of D<W and D>W, respectively. After analyzing the
simulation results, the following are obtained;
5.1 Influence of Grid Width W
To investigate the influence of grid with W, we varied
the grid width W only from 2m to 6m, and calculated the
SF on the horizontal line. Fig. 5 shows the SF curves with
three different grid widths. It is noted that the larger the
grid width is, the greater the SF value is. This indicates
that the structure with a large grid size will have a poor
shielding effect because of strong flux leakage through
the opening. In general, the SF curve is shifted upwards
linearly if the grid width is increased.

5.2 Influence of Structure Height H

To investigate the impact of structure height, the
shielding factor of the structure with two different Fig.6 Difference of SF in the structure with the heights of
heights; that is 40m and 60m, were calculated. In the 40m and 60m
simulation other structure parameters remained
0.4
unchanged. Figure 6 shows the difference of the SF on
the plane in the structure with the heights of 40m and
60m. The observation plane is located at the height of 5m 0.3
D=0.25m
D=0.50m

above the ground. It is noted that the difference of the SF D=0.75m

D=1.00m

is less than 4%. This indicates that the SF does not vary
D=2.00m
SF

0.2
with the structure height as long as the steady region is of
concern.
1 0.1

w=2
0.8 w=4
w=6 0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0.6 X (m)
SF

(a) d < w
0.4
0.4
D=2m
0.2 D=3m

0.3 D=4m
D=5m
0 D=10m
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 D=25m
SF

0.2 D=50m
X (m)
Figure 5. SF curves in the structure against grid width W
0.1
5.3 Influence of Distance to the Down Conductor D
It was noted in the preliminary study that SF is 0
significantly affected by the distance to the isolated down 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

conductor from the building structure. The greater is the X (m)

distance, the smoother the SF curve is. When D < W , the
SF curves on the observation line for different values of
D can be approximated by a set of parallel lines.
When D > W , the SF curves begin to twist gradually, and
become more and more flat if the distance is increased.
In the reference structure we varied the distance D to
the isolated down conductor from 0.25m to 50m, and
calculated the SF on the diagonal line at the height of 5m
above the ground. The simulation results are separated
into two groups, and presented in Figure 6(a) and (b).
Figures 7 (a) and (b) show the SF curves for the distance
(b) d > w
Figure 7. SF along a diagonal line in a structure with difference
distances to the isolated down conductor
• When D≤W, the SF curve shifts upwards with
increasing distance D. The SF curves with different
values of D have the same gradient generally. It is
inferred that the gradient of the SF curves is
independent of distance D while the interception point
is determined by distance D.

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• When W≤D≤10W, the SF curve twists around a point at where
x = −0.32 L with increasing D. At this time, both 0.079
k 0 ( D, L , W ) = ( − 0.123)(
1
− 2.6)
1/ 3
gradient and interception point of the SF curves are W D
dependent of distance D. 0.6485
• When 10W≤D, the SF curve twists around the center +( − 0.01539)
L /W
point at x=0 and y=0 with increasing D. Similarly both
gradient and interception point of the SF curves are k1 ( D ) = −0.0044 − 0.01339e( − D / 52.98) − 0.01142e ( − D / 3.117)
dependent of distance D. −0.18446 1
k2 (W , L) = −0.47 + ( + 1.0083)(+ 0.4)
W L /W
5.4 Influence of Structure Length L
−0.1843 1
To investigate the impact of structure length L, we k3 (W , L) = −0.06 + ( + 0.9479)( − 0.1)
W L /W
varied the structure length from 4m to 16m, and
calculated the SF again on the diagonal line at the height Shielding formulas given in (2) have been validated
of 5m. The simulation results are presented in Figure 8. numerically using a sample wire-grid structure. The
It is noted from the figure that when structure validation was made by comparing the results from (2)
parameters of H, D and W are fixed, the SF curve will with those from numerical calculation In the comparison
shift downward with increasing L. This indicates that the structure height H, length L and grid size W were fixed to
gradient of the fitted lines keeps constant and only the be 40m, 10m, and 2m, respectively.
interception point is changed. So it can be inferred that Two different values of distance D were selected for
the gradient of the SF curves is independent of L while the comparison, that is, D＝0.25m (D<W), and D=5m
the intercept is determined by L. These phenomena are (W≤D≤10W). The corresponding formulas are given by
also observed for the structure with other values of SF ( x) = −0.024 x + 0.1505 x ∈ [−3,3] (3)
parameters W, H and D. It is also found that the wider is SF = −0.0189( x + 1.8) + 0.2738 x ∈ [−3,3] (4)
the structure, the lower the SF is. This means that the Figures 9 and 10 shows the curves of SF obtained from
wider the structure is, the better its shielding effect is. the numerical calculation. It is noted that two curves in
0.6 the center region match very well.
L=4m
0.5
L=6m

L=8m
0.4 0.4
Numerical
L=10m
Empirical
L=12m
SF

0.3
L=16m
SF

0.2 0.2

0.1

0
-8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 0
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
X (m) x (m)

Figure 8. SF along the diagonal line in a structure with different Figure 9. SF curves obtained from numerical simulation and
structure empirical formula (D=0.25m)
0.7
6 EMPIRICAL SHIELDING FORMULAS
0.6 Empirical
Based on the discussion in the previous sections, Numericcal

general shielding formulas for the wire-grid structure can 0.5

be deduced. It is noted that the distance to a down 0.4

conductor is a critical parameter affecting shielding effect

SF

0.3
of the structure. Shielding formulas are given for
difference distance D. Given by horizontal distance x of 0.2

an observation point on the diagonal line in the structure, 0.1

shielding effect is expressed by
⎧−0.024 x + + k0 ( D, W , L)
0
D<W -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5

⎪ x (m)
SF ( x) = ⎨k1 ( D)( x + 0.18 L) + k2 (W , L) W<D<10W Figure 10. SF curves obtained from numerical simulation and
⎪k ( D ) x + k ( D, L ) D>10W empirical formula (D=0.25m)
⎩ 1 3

(2)

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 7 CONCLUSIONS
This paper discussed the shielding characteristics of a
metallic wire-grid structure against the magnetic field
emitted from an indirect lightning stroke. The structure
was made of a series of interconnected reinforcement
bars embedded in columns and beams of a modern
building. The shielding factor of the structure was
investigated with the equivalent circuit approach. The
computer simulations were performed, and the following
conclusions were obtained.
Shielding factor near a column can exceed one, which
indicates the resultant magnetic field with the structure is
more serious than that without the structure. It is not wise
to install any sensitive equipment in this region. The
magnetic field in the central region can be, however,
reduced significantly, but the reduction of the field is
greatly affected by geometrical parameters of the
structure. This steady region is normally determined by
the grid size of the structure.
It is found that the shielding factor does not vary
significantly with the structure height, as log as the
observation point is located in the steady region.
Reducing grid size not only improves shielding effect of
the structure, but also increases the steady region within
the structure. Similarly, increasing structure length or
width leads to the improvement of the shielding effect
and the expansion of the steady region.
The distance to an isolated down conductor has a great
impact on the shielding effect of the structure. In case of
small distance (D≤W), the SF curve shifts upwards with
increasing D. Its gradient is generally constant, and
independent of distance D. In case of lager distance
(W≤D), the SF curve twist around the central point at x=0
with increasing D. Both gradient and interception point of
the SF curves are dependent of distance D.
8 REFERENCES
The work leading to this paper was supported by
grants from the Research Committee of the Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, and the Research Grants Council
of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
(Project No. 516008 and 516809)
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