2012 International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLPj, Vienna, Austria

On the Evaluation of the Effective Height of Towers:

the Case of the Gaisberg Tower

Alexander Smorgonskiy, Farhad Rachidi Marcos Rubinstein

EMC Laboratory Institute for Information and Communication Technologies
Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland
Lausanne, Switzerland Yverdon-Ies-Bains, Switzerland
alexander.smorgonskiy@epfl.ch marcos.rubinstein@heig-vd.ch

Nikolay Korovkin
Department of Theoretical Bases of Electrical Engineering
St.-Petersburg State Polytechnical University
St.-Petersburg, Russia
nikolay.korovkin@gmail.com

Abstract-In this paper, we present the calculation of the effective
height of the Gaisberg tower using several models in which the
Gaisberg Mountain is represented by either simplified
geometrical shapes (hemisphere and hemiellipsoid), or by using
the actual 3D topography. The procedure to estimate the effective
height based on the comparison of the electric field at the top of
the tower located on flat and mountainous terrains is studied in
detail for the three considered representations of the mountain.
For each case, the electric field is computed numerically using the
finite element method. We show that the use of the actual 3D
topography of the mountain surface results in a very low value of
the effective height in the range of 200 - 300 m, which results in
an underestimation of the total number of flashes to the tower.
The obtained results give some concerns about the applicability
of this method of estimation for the effective height.
Keywords-lightning; tower; upward lightning; effective height
I. INTRODUCTION
In 1998, lightning-measuring equipment was installed on
the tower by the ALDIS-OVE Group. On average, the tower is
struck by 60 lightning flashes every year [2].
The total annual number of flashes N to any isolated tall
structure situated on a flat surface [3] is expressed as:
(I)
where h - is the height of the structure in m;
Ng - is the lightning flash density in flashes·km-2·year-1.
For objects on hilltops, lEC [4] recommends to increase the
obtained value of Nby applying a factor of 2 (Cd).
Tall towers and objects on mountains tops experience
significantly larger percentage of upward flashes [3] compared
to small objects on flat ground. The percentage of upward
flashes from an object of height h can be expressed as:

The Gaisberg Mountain is located in the Northern Alps in 1 0, h < 80 m

Austria (47.806 N, 13.112 E). The absolute height of the
%upward =
52.8 .In(h) -230, 80 m ::; h::; 500 m (2)
mountain is 1287 m. The view of this mountain from the city
of Salzburg is shown in Fig. 1. In 1956, a 100-m tall radio and 100, h > 500 m
TV transmitter was built on its summit.
In the case of the 100-m tall tower situated on the Gaisberg
Mountain in an area with an average ground flash density
Ng = 2.5 fl.·km-2·year-1, substitution into (1) will result in a
value N = 1.4 flashes/year (Cd 2). Such value of N is
=

observed only on some short towers on flat terrain [3]. At the

Gaisberg Tower about 60 flashes are registered every year [2].
Other structures situated on the mountaintops like the Siintis,
Peissenberg and San Salvatore Towers [5-7] are also struck
more often by lightning than towers of the same height located
on a flat surface.
Figure l. View of the Gaisberg Mountain from Salzburg, adopted from [1].
Besides, upward flashes to a tower of 100 m height on a flat
surface constitute only 13% of the total number of flashes

Financial supports from the BKW Ecology Fund and Science and Technology
Cooperation Program Switzerland-Russia are acknowledged.

978-1-4673-1897-6/12/$31.00 mOl2 IEEE

according to (2). However, it is known [2] that a 100-m tall
tower situated on the Gaisberg Mountain receives ahnost only
upward flashes.
To account for the increased number of upward flashes
trom a tower located on a mountaintop, the concept of the
effective height of the tower was introduced [3]. The effective
height heft of a tower located on the top of a mountain is, in
general, considerably larger than the physical height of the
tower. It corresponds to the height of an equivalent tower
located on flat ground which experiences
• the same number of flashes per year,
exception of the eastern slope, which is less steep than the three
others.
Two orthogonal sections of the mountain are shown in
Fig. 3. In this figure, we have also plotted the sections of the
solid objects used in [9, 10] to create the approximate
representation of the mountain. A hemisphere of 800 m radius
is shown in solid black lines; a hemiellipsoid with semi axes of
200 and 800 m - in dashed white lines.
N

• the same percentage of upward flashes.

Also, it was suggested [8] that some other parameters
remain the same for the original tower and the equivalent
Salzburg
tower, namely
• the same electric field on the top of the tower,
<:S7
• the same leader inception criteria and ambient ground
field.
The advantage of the first group of parameters, N and
%upward, is that they can be determined from direct
measurements on the towers, when available. The second
Altitude, m
group is based on the use of a theoretical model and it allows
us to find hefj for towers for which direct measurements are not
available. However, the estimates obtained from theoretical Figure 2. Topographic map around the Gaisberg Mountain with isolines at
models should be first compared to the cases for which direct every 100 m. Each square cell is I x I km.
measurements are available. Such comparison for the case of
the Gaisberg Tower constitutes the subject of the present paper. Altitude, m
From Equation (2), the value of the effective height hefT for 1500
y
the Gaisberg Tower should be more than 500 m since %upward =

99.9%. On the other hand, given the total number of flashes N

60 flashes/year measured at the tower, the effective height I....,p
.. .....
"i' II �\ "-
=

can be found trom (I) by solving for h. The resulting heft is, in 1000 --.-'1/ -n ,'\.
this case, 900 m. This value of the effective height also satisfies V/
!I llLC'I
Equation (2). I 1\
kt�r \
From the comparison of the electric field above the tower 500
'�
1::::11 C
1- -
Vn � l:i=I
situated on a simplified mountain model and the electric field '

above an equivalent tower on flat terrain, the value of the

effective height for the Gaisberg Tower has been estimated to a) West-East profile
be in the range of 250-550 meters depending on the model of 1500
the mountain used [9]. These values are not directly suitable for
the evaluation of lightning incidence to the tower since they
result in an underestimation of the yearly number of lightning �� ::--
flashes to the tower. Therefore, in this paper we propose to 1000 � II �\ �
- / n i\. r--...
study in more detail the model of the mountain, the ways to 1]
!I r-r--
improve it and also to analyze the possibility of application of I ( 1\
the method used to estimate heft based on the comparison of the \
values of the electric field on the top of the towers. 500 ;;;;;: 1:::::1 c::: ;;;;;: ;;;;;; 1:?

IT. GAISBERG MOUNTAIN

b) North-South profile 500 m
As we can see trom the topographical map of the area
surrounding the mountain (shown in the center of Fig. 2), to the
West trom the peak lies the valley with the city of Salzburg. Figure 3_ Gaisberg Mountain profiles overlapped with the sections of a
hemisphere and a hemiellipsoid_
The Gaisberg Mountain itself is quite symmetrical, with the
 It is evident from this approximate overlap of the profiles
that the hemisphere better represents the surface of the
mountain than a hemiellipsoid. Also, decreasing the radius of
the ellipsoid will result in a significant difference between the
real surface of the mountain and its model. A more rigorous
comparison is presented later in the paper.
TIT. ELECTRIC FIELD AT THE Top OF THE TOWER ON A FLAT
SURFACE
As mentioned in the introduction, we need to calculate the
electric field E/op at the top of the considered tower in order to
have the reference value for evaluating the effective height.
The model used for this calculation includes a tower
represented by a grounded cylinder with a radius of 1 m and
varying height. A dipole model is used for the thundercloud
the top of the mountain with and without a tower on it [9, 10].
Here, we will shortly describe the used model and compare the
results with previous work.
The upper part of the model, i.e. the cloud, is identical to
the description given in Section 3. The only difference is that,
in this case, the tower is situated not on a flat surface but either
on a hemisphere (with the radius of 800 m) or on a hemi­
ellipsoid (base radius 200 m, height 800 m), as shown in Fig. 3.
The radius of the tower is also 1 m.
The calculation of the effective height is based on its
definition. At first, we consider the tower on a hemisphere and
we obtain the electric field at the top of the tower when the
lower charged sphere center is located at the altitude of 5 km,
which results in E(op 1.5 MV/m.
=

[3] represented by 2 charged spheres with a radius of 2 km
above the tower. The lower sphere carries a charge of - 40 C
and the upper sphere has an equal charge of opposite polarity.
The distance between the spheres is fixed at 5 km; the altitude
of the lower sphere center H is a varying parameter: H 5, 6,
7 km.
Then we compare the value of Etop with the reference
values of electric field calculated for the case of a single tower
on flat terrain shown in Fig. 4. We choose the appropriate line
corresponding to the same location of the cloud dipole and
=
obtain the effective height of the tower on a flat surface which
gives the same value of electric field enhancement; in our case,

Etop . 106 Vim

3.5 3.S

3.0 3.0 r- • hemisphere

2.5 V H= 5km
2.S - ... hemiellipsoid
v/
H= Skm

./
/"" ./
/""
2.0 2.0

./
V ...----
......
H= 6km V ......
......
v ... H= 6km
1.5 I.S --- ---+- ---
,/ v'/
1.0 ./- v----- - --- H= 7km
1.0 ./ .I -v----- -- "'- H= 7km

�-...---
--- l.---
�----
- --
I
�-
l.---.......

0.5 O.S - 'f

� h, m
-:::::-- I
0.0 0.0 h,m
o 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 o 100 200 300 400 SOO 600 700 800
Figure 4. Electric field at the top of the tower of height h located under the Figure 5. Effective height of the tower using hemispheric and
cloud with different base altitudes H. hemiellipsoidal representation of the mountain under the cloud with diflerent
base altitudes H.
The problem was solved by using the finite element method
(FEM) in COMSOL and the results are shown in Fig. 4. It can the obtained value is 350 m. This example and the results for
both solid objects are shown in Fig. 5. The straight lines
be seen that when the base of the cloud is closer to the ground,
corresponding to the hemiellipsoid exhibit steeper slopes
a higher value of the electric field at the top of the tower E(op is
compared to the hemisphere, leading to a more significant
found.
increase in the electric field and, consequently, results in a
TV. ELECTRIC FIELD AT THE Top OF THE TOWER ON THE bigger value for the effective height.
GAISBERG MOUNTAIN The obtained values are similar to those given in [9] but
The fmite element method and the same software COMSOL some differences remain. The main difference leading to the
were used to fmd the electric field at the top of the tower discrepancy in the results is the assumption on the background
situated on the Gaisberg Mountain. A comparison between the field: Tn our case, it is created by the charged spheres, while in
real 3D terrain surface and its approximate model is presented the cited paper it is assumed to be vertically directed and
constant.
in this section.
A. Approximation o/the mountain by a simplified solid object B. Digital elevation model
The surface of 16 km by 16 km area around Gaisberg was
Tn several studies, the mountain has been replaced with a
solid object to simplifY the geometry of the problem and to imported into a COMSOL model. Smooth surfaces were
derive analytical formulas for the electric field enhancement at obtained using the built-in interpolation module.
An overview of the model is shown in Fig. 6. At the
bottom, the tower (radius of 1 m) can't be discerned directly.
Only the cylindrical volume (radius 200 m, height 1000 m)
with fme meshing is visible, in which a minimum element size
of 0.1 m was applied. The total number of meshing elements
used in the model is 1.2 million. The cloud model is the same
as the one described in Section 3. The rough surface of the
ground replicates the mountainous region with the Gaisberg
Mountain in the center and is modeled as a perfect conductor.
The calculation volume is surrounded by the "infinite
elements" in all dimensions except the ground.
1.5
hemiellipsoidal model. We have also considered two different
values for the radius of the tower: 1 m and 5 m. The
corresponding results are also presented in Table 1 and we can
see that both models give similar values.
V. CONCLUSIONS
We have analyzed different methods used to calculate the
effective height of towers. The procedure to estimate hejJ based
on the comparison of the electric field at the top of the towers
located on flat and mountainous terrains was studied in details
using different representations of the mountain.
We have found out that the usage of the real mountain
surface resulted in the lowest values of the effective height in
the range of 200 - 300 m compared to the other models. The
obtained hejJ cannot be used in (1) to estimate the lightning
incidence since it gives an underestimated value of the total
number of flashes to the tower. Therefore this result gives
some concerns about this method of estimation for the effective
height and it should be revisited. For future work we propose to
analyze the effect of the ground conductivity and cloud model
on the obtained results.
Finally, note that in the calculation of the electric field, the
tower was modeled as a cylinder. Simulation results showed
that the obtained values for the effective height are not
significantly affected by the choice of the radius (1 m and 5 m).
It should be noted, however, that since the effective height is
by definition applied to a single point in an area, it is possible
that local conditions would affect the estimated value of the
effective height.

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They slightly differ from the values calculated using a
hemispherical model and are two times smaller than for the