Basics of Lightning Protection

Lightning Phenomenon
The rising moisture super-cools as it rises and turns to
snow, hail, and ice in the upper regions. There can be
severe turbulence in these clouds, which involves
intermixing and friction of raindrops, snow, ice, and
hail. This causes a strong electrification to take place.

Negative charging occurs in the temperature range

from -15 to -30°C (in the middle of the cloud), while
positive charging occurs from 0 to -15°C (the bottom
of the cloud) and at temperatures below -30°C (the
top of the cloud).

Lower regions of the cloud usually become strongly

negatively charged, with small pockets of positive
charge frequently interspersed. The upper regions of
the cloud—at temperatures far below the freezing
point of water—have widely distributed positive
charges.

The net negative charge at the base of the cloud induces a similar positive charge on the
surface of the earth beneath, and voltages between the base of the cloud and the earth can
increase to 100 million volts or more. This charge concentration increases the voltage
between cloud and earth until the dielectric strength of the moist air between cloud and
ground is overcome, and a spark—the lightning flash—occurs.
 Stroke Mechanism- Downward Leader
Lightning flashes may have to traverse several
kilometers to complete a path to earth.

The leader usually starts from a negative charge

pocket in the cloud as a “stepped leader,” so called
because the discharge proceeds as a series of steps
toward the earth. Each step appears as a faint glow
discharge whose core may be a few centimeters in
diameter and approximately 50 m long, surrounded
by a corona envelope a meter or more in diameter.

Each step starts at the lower end of the previous step, zigzagging toward the earth, often
accompanied by downward branching. A time interval of about 50 μs occurs between
successive steps, but this time between steps shortens as the leader nears the earth below.
The average velocity is in the range of 3 x 10 5 m/s, one-thousandth the velocity of light. The
entire stepped leader acts as a conductor carrying a strong distribution of negative charge in
its corona sheath as it moves toward the striking point.

As the leader tip approaches within approximately 100 m of the earth, the earth's electric field
builds up to values greater than the dielectric strength of the air around pointed or protruding
objects, and a positively charged upward leader rises from the ground or from a protruding
object to meet the downward leader. When the two leaders merge, a current path now exists
between cloud and ground. This current is made up of charges at the soil surface that go up
to the ionised channel formed by the leader, neutralising its charges. A highly luminous flash,
 Stroke Mechanism- Downward Leader
Lightning discharge is constituted of several strokes flowing at the same ionised channel by
following process:-

i) When the current of the first return stroke ends up, there is an interval of about 40 ms
until a second stroke appears. This second stroke begins with a leader that is
continuous & not stepped and is termed as dart leader.

ii) Several successive strokes may occur according to the same mechanism and in this
way the complete discharge consisting of several dart leaders & return strokes lasts for
0.2 to 1 second.
 Stroke Mechanism- Upward Leader
When a tall object such as a river crossing tower, tall building, or mast is located on the earth
under the same cloud electrification shown earlier, a different triggering mechanism can
occur. The electric field can build up around the top of grounded object so strongly that an
upward leader is initiated from the object and moves toward a negative charge pocket at the
base of the cloud, often accompanied by upward branching. This leader eventually completes
the circuit, and negative current flows from the cloud to earth as a first stroke, and
subsequent strokes can then follow.

It is believed that downward negative lightning flashes account for about 90% or more of
global cloud-to-ground lightning and that 10% or less of cloud-to-ground discharges are
downward positive lightning flashes.

Positive lightning discharges are relatively more energetic and potentially more destructive
than negative lightning discharges.
 Effect of Lightning on Transmission Lines

i) Flashover caused by Induced Surges : Lightning striking to soil nearby a transmission line
can induce surge overvoltages (of magnitude generally less than 300kV) on it. Thus, it
may cause flashover in medium voltage lines but is not a concern for High voltage lines.

ii) Flashovers caused by direct strokes to conductors: When lightning strikes a conductor of
a transmission line, a high impulse overvoltage is developed between the conductor &
tower, the conductor & other phase conductors or the conductor & ground. These impulse
overvoltages can cause flashover in the line.

The peak of impulse overvoltage generated by a direct stroke in a conductor with surge
impedance Z is approximated by Vsurge ≈ ZIpeak/2. Considering surge impedance Z of 400
ohms, even a low discharge current of 10kA can generate very high overvoltages in the
conductor (2 MV).

iii) Flashovers caused by direct strokes to Shield wires or towers: Due to the high surge
impedance of ground wires, tower, grounding system, etc., the ground wire/ tower top
voltage can reach very high values. Then, consequently, the insulation of line is stressed
by the large voltgae generated between tower & conductor and if the voltage is high
enough, backflashover would take place.
 Lightning Protection of Transmission Lines
i) Use of Air terminals:The earliest protection measures adopted in 19th century was use of
Air terminals or devices intended to intercept the lightning event. Benjamin Franklin’s
original idea was to use a sharp point to draw charges from the cloud to discharge it and
thus prevent lightning.

He published the first instruction for protection of houses from lightning in 1752 through
use of iron Rod whose one End being 3 or 4 ft in the moist ground, the other may be 6 or
8 ft above the tallest part of the Building. To the upper End of the Rod, about 1 ft of Brass
Wire (the Size of a common Knitting- needle, sharpened to a fine Point) was to be tied
up. He indicated that the House thus furnished will not be damaged by Lightning as the
lightning would be attracted by the Points, and shall passing through the metal into the
ground without hurting anything.

Soon, the installation of lightning rods was followed. A lightning strike to the spire of the
Church of St. Nazaire in Brescia, Italy, (which did not install lightning rods) ignited a large
amount of gunpowder stored there and several thousand people were killed. As a result,
lightning protection was considered and installed by the British government for the
powder magazines at Purfleet, England.
Shortly after the installation of the lightning protection system, lightning struck at Purfleet.
The strike missed the lightning protection system, striking another metal component of
the building, resulting in some masonry damage. Although the powder was not ignited,
the incident ignited controversy over the effectiveness of lightning protection systems. It
became clear that the lightning rod had some limitations, in particular, a range of effect.
 Lightning Protection of Transmission Lines
ii) Concept of conical protection zone: Soon, the concept of conical protection zone (i.e. a
zone substantially immune to lightning strikes due to the air terminal) developed in 1820s.
In 1823, Gay-Lussac proposed a cone of protection with a radius of twice the height of the
air terminal. In the 1840s, by examining the strike locations on ships over 20 years, Sir
William Snow Harris demonstrated the 2 : 1 protective zone was not effective in all cases.
In 1880, Preece conducted experiments to measure the actual electric field about a
vertical air terminal and concluded that a 1 : 1 height-to-radius conical volume was the
effective protected zone. (Equivalently expressed as a 45 protective angle, or 90 conical
section). With the bulk of evidence available at the time, cones of protection varying from
45 to 64 protective angle were retained as the protected zone concept, with little variation.

iii) Electrogeometric model: Larmor and Larmor in their 1914 work, related the zone of
protection to electric field lines and proposed the concept of curved protected zone and
predicted the possibility of oblique strikes. Finally, the conical zones of protection were
superseded by the electrogeometric model in the 1980 edition of NFPA 78.
Prior to the development of simplified electrogeometric model (EGM), shielding angles of
about 30 degrees were used with success on the great majority of lines for which tower
heights were in the range of 24 metres. The impetus for Wagner & Young’s EGM was the
poor performance of AG&E/OVEC 345kV D/C line in USA having tower height of 46
metres and employing shielding sngle of 33 degrees. Through the model, Young
demonstrated that the shielding sngles should be decreased as the tower height
increases. He recommended shielding angle of 15 degrees for the 345kV line and
continued for 30 degrees for tower height of 25-30 m
 Electro geometric Model
1.0 As the downward leader approaches earth, a point of discrimination is reached for a final
leader step wherein the leader strikes an object whose striking distance is closest to it
and the other object with striking distance shielded by the striking distance of the earlier
mentioned object is spared. This is illustrated in the figure below:-

2.0The exposure length DC i.e. gap

between A&B, represents the portion
where strike distance of phase
conductor is exposed to lightning
flash.

3.0 The striking distance recommended by IEEE 1243 is rc = 10x I.65 where rc is the strike
distance of conductor/ groundwire and ,
rg = {3.6+ 1.7 X ln (43-yc)} X I.65 for yc or avg. height of conductor < 40 m
and rg = {5.55 X I.65 for yc >= 40 m
 Evaluating Performance of Transmission lines
1.0 The ground flash density, Ng (in flashes/km2/yr) is calculated using the annual
thunderstorm days or keraunic level, Td as Ng = 0.04 X Td 1.25

2.0 The no. of lightning strokes that hits a transmission line: Nl = Ng/10 X (28h0.6+ b) where h
is the tower height (in metres) and b is the ground wires separation distance (in metres).

3.0 Shield wires are generally provided on transmission lines to intercept the incoming
lightning strokes and adequate earthing of transmission line towers is done to dissipate
the surge currents into ground. Failure of the shield wires to intercept the incoming
lightning strikes so that it hits the phase conductors is referred as shielding failure. This is
measured using SFFOR (Shielding failure flashover rate).

The inadequacy of tower footing resistance may lead to development of large

overvoltages on towers and hence across the insulators during lightning strikes thereby
causing Backflashover. This is measured using Backflashover rate (BFR)

Lightning performance of transmission lines is Lightning strokes that hit the phase conductors
Lightning is approximated by a Norton equivalent circuit. Herein, the lightning is
considered as an ideal current source equal to the lightning current that would be injected
into the ground if the ground were perfectly conducting.
 Shielding Failure
1.0 The number of lightning strokes that hit directly the phase conductors are expressed as
shielding failure rate (SFR), calculated by:-

where, L1 is the line length.

f(I) is the probability density function of current
Im is the maximum current (in kA) that can hit the phase conductor. It may be seen
that with increase in stroke current, the strike distance of groundwire/ conductor also
increases, thereby causing the phase conductor to be shielded. As such, there is a
limit to the maximum value of stroke current that can strike phase conductor referred
as Critical Stroke current.
The lower limit of 3kA recognises that there is a lower limit to stroke current.

2.0 If the voltages on conductors, produced by these shielding failures are less than U50 (i.e.
negative polarity lightning impulse critical flashover voltage, CFO), no shielding failure
flashover occurs. Thus, to determine the shielding failure flashover rate, SFFOR, the
lower limit of 3 is replaced by Ic, where Ic = 2X U50/Zsurge
where, Zsurge or Conductor Surge Impedance under Corona (Ohms) is given by,
Zsurge = 60 X √(ln(2h/r) x ln(2h/Rc))

Where, h = avg. conductor height (m)

r = conductor radius (m)
R = Corona radius of conductor under gradient of 1500kV/m
Thank You