490
2, APRIL 2004
Nonuniform Transmission Tower Model for
Lightning Transient Studies
J. A. Gutiérrez R., P. Moreno, J. L. Naredo, J. L. Bermúdez, M. Paolone, C. A. Nucci, and F. Rachidi
Abstract—This paper presents a new approach to model a
transmission tower for lightning performance studies. It consists
of representing each part of the tower by equivalent vertical
and/or horizontal transmission lines as required. While horizontal
line parameters are obtained from standard line formulas, spe-
cific expressions are derived for the parameters of vertical lines.
Moreover, mutual coupling between any two parallel vertical
transmission lines is taken into account. Transient waveforms
obtained using the proposed method are compared with exper-
imental data obtained using a reduced-scale model and field
experiments. The agreement between simulated results and ex-
perimental measurements is satisfactory.
Index Terms—Vertical transmission lines, nonuniform transmis-
sion lines, transmission tower modeling, transient analysis, mutual
impedance, reduced-scale model (RSM).
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE PROBLEM of modeling the transient behavior of
a tower struck by lightning is very important and has
been dealt with since the 1930’s [1]. For a well-designed line
shielding, a lightning stroke hitting a phase conductor and
causing an outage should be a very rare event. Nevertheless,
lightning can still produce a large number of outages through
the back-flashover mechanism. When a stroke hits a ground
wire or a transmission tower, the injected current propagates
toward the ground through the tower’s body causing an
instantaneous rise of the tower voltage. This may result in a
back-flashover; that is, a flashover from the tower body to a
phase conductor.
Field measurements and experiments provide the most effec-
tive means to assess the transient performance of a particular
tower structure. Since this approach is very difficult an ex-
pensive, it is highly desirable to complement it with digital
computer simulations. The specialized literature provides elec-
tromagnetic models only for certain classes of towers. These
models usually consist of nonuniform lossless single line rep-
resentations [2], [7], [18], [20], [21]. There is, however, a need
for more general modeling techniques; as for instance, when
the towers under study differ substantially from the geometries
Manuscript received December 10, 2002. The work of J. A. Gutierrez R. and
P. Moreno was supported by the National Council of Science and Technology
of Mexico (CONACYT) through Project 34698-A.
J. A. Gutiérrez R. is with Department of Mathematics, University of Guadala-
jara, CP 44420, Mexico.
P. Moreno and J. L. Naredo are with CINVESTAV—Unidad Guadalajara,
Guadalajara, CP 45090, México.
J. L. Bermudez and F. Rachidi are with Swiss Federal Institute of Technology,
Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland.
M. Paolone and C. A. Nucci are with University of Bologna, Bologna 40136,
Italy.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2003.823210
0885-8977/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 19, NO.
for which formulas are available [19]. One may want, in ad-
dition, to analyze the effects of distributed losses, of variable
wave speeds and even of tower arms.
This paper presents a new approach to model transmission
towers for lightning performance studies which addresses the
previously mentioned needs. Preliminary results with this model
were presented in [22]. Here, in order to further validate the
method, comparisons against measurements on a reduced-scale
model (RSM) [15] and two field experiments reported in [6] are
presented.
II. MODELING TOWERS WITH TRANSMISSION LINE SEGMENTS
The methodology presented here focuses on truss-towers, like
the one shown in Fig. 1(a). These towers usually are composed
of several truss modules; as for instance, the different stages of
the main body, the arms and even perhaps a few cross-sections.
Each truss module consists typically of four long bars, here-
after called columns, which are joined by other usually shorter
transversal and slanted bars. Propagation phenomena over the
different elements of a transmission tower, is a four dimensional
problem involving spherical waves. A complete field solution
would require using numerical methods such as finite-differ-
ence time domain, finite-element, method of moments, etc. If
truss modules are approximated by equivalent conductors of cir-
cular cross section, a tower can be modeled as a network of
cylindrical wires, as shown in Fig. 1(b). Assuming that the prin-
cipal mode of propagation is transverse electromagnetic (TEM),
one can define a unique voltage difference between any pair of
points contained in the same transversal plane. Although the
TEM representation is approximate, permits deriving a char-
acteristic impedance function and provides a practical method-
ology to apply the well-known transmission line concepts to
tower modeling. In the present approach, it is assumed that the
lightning energy propagates only along the columns. Indeed, it
has been estimated in [8] that no more than 1% of this energy
propagates along the slanted bars and that practically zero en-
ergy propagates along the transversal ones.
The columns of each module can be represented as multi-
conductor uniform or nonuniform lines which can be further
reduced to single phase lines, either through Kron’s reduction or
through conductor bundling formulas [16], [22]. As such, their
electromagnetic response to lightning surges is modeled by the
well-known Transmission Line Telegrapher’s Equations [9] as
follows:
(1a)
(1b)
GUTIÉRREZ et al.: NONUNIFORM TRANSMISSION TOWER MODEL FOR LIGHTNING TRANSIENT STUDIES 491

Fig. 1. (a) Truss transmission tower. (b) Tower representation with

transmission line segments.

where , and are the line per unit-length induc-

tance, resistance and capacitance, respectively. Equations (1a)
and (1b) do not take into account the frequency variations of Fig. 2. (a) Vertical cylinder above a lossy ground plane. (b) Conical line and
and . However, since the skin depth is very small at high image.
frequencies, this approach very often provides accurate results
when dealing with fast transients. Electrical parameters for the tenna. Fig. 2(a) depicts a differential element of a vertical
case of horizontal segments can be obtained by well-known for- column of radius at a height above a lossy ground plane.
mulas [10]–[12]. These formulas were obtained for infinitely For thin cylindrical conductors the element can be consid-
long lines which means that end effects are neglected. For the ered as an element of a biconical antenna with a cone angle of
case of the shortest truss segments this may not hold. Neverthe- as shown in Fig. 2(b). Losses due to finite
less, for the travel and the rise times of the waveforms involved ground conductivity can be accounted for by means of the com-
in lightning, tower arms behave as long wire antennas. In this plex image method [11], [12]. In Fig. 2(b) is the complex skin
case, reflection analysis can be performed considering only the depth given by
transmission line behavior [23].
In the case of inclined and vertical segments, the line param- (2)
eters vary with respect to the height and the formulation pro-
posed as follows must be used. The current flowing through an where and are the soil permeability and conductivity
inclined segment can be decomposed in its vertical and hori- respectively, and is the angular frequency [9].
zontal components; therefore, these segments are modeled using The TEM field emitted by a biconical antenna is given by the
a horizontal and a vertical equivalent line. Fig. 1(b) illustrates following expressions [14]:
the representation of the tower in Fig. 1(a) by a number of in-
terconnected line segments. (3a)
Once line parameters have been calculated for all the tower (3b)
modules, the network representing the whole structure can (3c)
be simulated either with a network code such as EMTP or
using a numerical simulation code (e.g., the finite-difference where is the magnitude of the magnetic vector potential,
time-domain method). The latter alternative is adopted in this is the phase constant, and are the permeability
paper. Specifically, the method of characteristics is applied [9] and the permittivity, respectively, of the medium above the earth
in which each transmission line end (uniform or non uniform) plane.
is modeled with a Norton equivalent circuit similar to those of The voltage of the element on the cone shown in Fig. 2(b),
the method of Bergeron [13]. with respect to the plane of , is given by

III. SURGE IMPEDANCE OF SINGLE VERTICAL CONDUCTORS (4)

As previously mentioned, trusses are grouped into equiva-
lent cylindrical conductors. If the transverse dimensions of the Substituting (3b) in (4) and solving the integral yields
vertical equivalent conductors are small, the waves along them
will be nearly spherical [14]. Therefore, on applying the method
(5)
of images, these waves will resemble those of a biconical an-
492 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 19, NO. 2, APRIL 2004

The current flowing through the element is found by

applying Ampere’s law around the transversal cone circle with
radius

(6)

Substituting (3a) and solving the integral in (6) results in the

following expression:

(7)

Using (5) and (7) the characteristic impedance of the inverted

conical line is obtained as follows:

(8)

It can be shown after some algebraic manipulation that

Fig. 3. Conical line representation of two parallel vertical conductors and

images.
(9)

Substituting (9) into (8):

(10)

where

(11a)

(11b)

The expression for corresponds to the characteristic

impedance of a vertical cylinder with height and apex on
a perfect conducting ground plane; therefore, it represents
a geometric impedance. The impedance represents the
contribution resulting from the finite ground conductivity.
Fig. 4. Equivalent diagram of the reduced-scale model.
IV. MUTUAL IMPEDANCE OF TWO VERTICAL CONDUCTORS
Consider now the two parallel columns shown in Fig. 3, along
The current flowing through element A is already given by
with the two differential elements A and B at a height “h” above
expression (7). The mutual characteristic impedance between
the earth plane. A and B also are elements of inverted cones as
columns “i” and “j” is thus
depicted in the figure.
The current flowing through element A produces an elec-
tric field given by (3b). The voltage associated with element (14a)
B is obtained by integrating from C to B along the circular
trajectory of radius ’ indicated in Fig. 3 In much the same manner as with the self-impedance, one can
obtain the following relationship for the mutual term:
(12)

Substituting (3b) into (12) and solving the integral, we obtain

(13) (14b)
GUTIÉRREZ et al.: NONUNIFORM TRANSMISSION TOWER MODEL FOR LIGHTNING TRANSIENT STUDIES 493

Fig. 5. Pulse 5 ns wide. Fig. 6. Pulse 2 ns wide.

So, the expression for the mutual impedance becomes

(15)

where

(15a)

and

(15b)

Fig. 7. Pulse 500 ps wide.

Similarly to (11a) and (11b), (15a) corresponds to the mutual
geometric impedance and (15b) to the mutual earth impedance.

V. ELECTRICAL PARAMETERS FOR A MULTICONDUCTOR

VERTICAL LINE
The surge impedance matrix for a vertical multi-conductor
system is readily obtained with (11a) and (15a). From basic
Electromagnetic Theory [14], the geometric inductance matrix
for this system can be related to the surge impedance as
follows:

(16)

To calculate the geometric capacitance matrix for the vertical

multi-conductor system one can use the following well-known Fig. 8. Vertical experimental line.
relationship [14]

(17) The generalized inductance given by (18) decreases with in-

creasing frequency and in the limiting case when it
By using (11b), (15b), and (16), it is possible to define a com- tends to zero. This is in agreement with the fact that as be-
plex generalized inductance, , given by comes zero, no field penetrates inside the earth. If the earth is
assumed to be perfectly conducting, and also are zero. In
(18) these two cases remains only the contribution of the geometric
inductance given by (16). When tends to infinity and
The real part of this inductance is the earth inductance term a magneto-static approach should be applied. Since the earth
usually is nonmagnetic at low frequencies, it should have no in-
(19)
fluence on the magneto-static field. In this case it should be the
and the imaginary part is the earth resistance term same field as that of free space.
Diagonal matrices and account for the electromag-
(20) netic field penetration inside the columns. The following high
494 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 19, NO. 2, APRIL 2004

frequency expression is used to evaluate the diagonal elements

of these matrices [10], [12]:
(21)
In the above expression, is the equivalent radius of the th
vertical column and is the resistivity of the column material.

VI. MEASUREMENTS ON A REDUCED SCALE MODEL

In order to test the proposed model, measurements on a re-
duced scale model were performed [15]. The experimental set
up consisted of two parallel circular plates of 1 m radius sep-
arated by a distance that can be varied from 40 cm to 1 m.
A very fast pulse was injected into the RSM trough a hole at Fig. 9. Experimental and simulation responses for the 5-ns pulse.
the center of the upper plate. The two plates were connected
at the edges using copper ribbons providing the displacement
current path. The injection of the fast pulse is made through a
50 coaxial cable connecting the pulse generator and the top
of RSM under study. An HP 8131A, 500 MHz, pulse generator
produced the input pulse, and the injected voltage and currents
along the RSM were digitized using a Lecroy LC574AL oscillo-
scope, with 1 GHz, 10 GS/s, and 8 Mb of memory. The currents
were measured using EMCO sensors having a pass band from
1 MHz to 1 GHz. An equivalent diagram of the experiment set
up is presented in Fig. 4. Previous experiments reported else-
where, such as in [5], relied on injected step-like signals. To
avoid possible signal drifts, narrow-width pulses were used here
instead. Figs. 5–7 show the signals used of widths 5 ns, 2 ns, and
500 ps, respectively. Fig. 8 shows the geometry of the RSM. The Fig. 10. Experimental and simulation responses for the 2-ns pulse.
length of the vertical conductor was 1 m and, in order to satisfy
the thin wire assumption, a radius of 1 mm was chosen. This
was the smallest practical conductor’s radius due to mechanical
requirements.
The three current waveforms shown in Figs. 5–7 were in-
jected at the top of the vertical cylindrical conductor of Fig. 8.
For each injected current the voltage response of the vertical
line was measured (see Fig. 4) and compared with numerical
simulations carried out using the modeling methodology being
proposed here. Experimental measurements and simulation re-
sults are shown in Figs. 9–11. In the three cases, the agreement
between measurements and simulations is very satisfactory.
The results from simulations are very similar to those from
measurements only during the first 42 ns. After this time, the dif-
ferences become more evident. One major reason for this is that Fig. 11. Experimental and simulation responses for the 500 ps pulse.
for the simulation only the feeding cable, the vertical conductor
and the circular basement of the RSM were modeled in detail; data in Table I have been adopted for calculating the per-unit-
whereas the rest of the system was approximated with a lumped length line parameters of each line segment. Phase conductors
equivalent impedance of 51 . The 42-ns time, in fact, corre- and ground wires were completely insulated from the tower 7.
sponds to the arrival instant for waves coming from the portion The injected excitation is represented by an ideal current source
of the system that was approximated with a lumped impedance. with a waveform shown in Fig. 13. Fig. 14 shows both the sim-
ulated and the measured waveforms for the voltage between the
VII. SIMULATION OF A FIELD EXPERIMENT tower and the ground wire at the injection point. Note that the
The proposed model has also been applied to simulate two agreement between the two waveforms is very satisfactory.
field experiments reported in [6]. First, a current step was in- The second experiment consisted of the injection of a current
jected at top of the tower depicted in Fig. 1(a). Fig. 12 shows the step into one of the ground wire arms of the tower. The voltages
diagram of the experiment’s setup with tower 7 being the one in at the insulator strings were then recorded. The ground wires
which the current step was injected. This tower was modeled as were solidly connected to towers 5, 7, and 8 and are insulated
a network of eleven nonuniform lines, as shown in Fig. 1(b). The from tower 6. Phase conductors were also solidly connected to
GUTIÉRREZ et al.: NONUNIFORM TRANSMISSION TOWER MODEL FOR LIGHTNING TRANSIENT STUDIES
Fig. 12. Experiment setup diagram.
Fig. 13. Injected current waveform.
Fig. 14. Comparison between measurement and simulation in the injected
point with the ground wires insolated.
tower structures 5 and 8 and are insulated from towers 6 and
7. Fig. 15 depicts the model employed for the simulation. For
this field experiment the injected current was not reported in
[6], thus, the same waveform of Fig. 13 was used in the simu-
lations. Tower 7 was modeled in the same way as for the first
field experiment.
In the experiments, the transmission line (i.e., the phase and
ground conductors) was represented by a matrix of impedances
that corresponds to one half the line’s surge impedance . Ge-
ometrical data for the ground wires are: diameter of 1.57 cm,
medium height of 72.2 m and horizontal distance to tower center
of 10.4 m. For the phase conductors the geometrical data are:
four conductors of 3.84 cm of diameter per bundle, bundle diam-
eter of 70.7 cm, horizontal distances to tower center of 10 m, and
495
TABLE I
DATA ASSUMED FOR THE TOWER
Fig. 15. Model for experiment’s setup.
medium heights of 59.4, 46.7, and 34.0 m for the upper, middle,
and lower phases, respectively. Notice that this line representa-
tion neglects the effects of towers 5, 6, and 8. One additional
detail concerning the impedance matrix representing the line is
that its off-diagonal elements are provided with delay operators.
The effect of these operators is to provide delay times that ac-
count for the time required by a disturbance in one conductor to
exert an influence on another parallel conductor [17]. The delay
times correspond to the distance between conductors divided by
the light speed.
In Fig. 14, one can notice, after the first overvoltage, a differ-
ence in the dropping time between the calculated and the mea-
sured waveforms. Additional differences can also be observed
in the subsequent oscillations. This could be due to the modeling
of the tower foot. In the simulation, a lumped impedance whose
value is provided in [6] was used to connect the tower to ground;
however, for a real tower the buried part of the structure could
behave as a more complicated circuit; even as a distributed pa-
rameter system, especially when dealing with fast transients.
Fig. 16 shows both simulated and measured waveforms at the
insulator string on the upper arm, which is at the same side as the
ground wire arm with the current injection. Again, a very good
496
Fig. 16. Comparison between measurement and simulation in the highest
phase.
agreement is obtained. One can observe three spikes on top of
the first crest of the measured waveform. These spikes can also
be noticed in the calculated waveform but in this case they are
smoother. These spikes correspond to the reflections from the
ground wire opposite to the injection point, to the middle phase
arms and to the bottom phase arms, in this order. Differences in
the subsequent oscillations due to tower foot modeling can also
be noticed.
VIII. CONCLUSION
We proposed in this paper a new model to represent the
transient behavior of a tower struck by lightning. The model
is particularly suited to model complex tower structures with
horizontal, inclined, and vertical sections. The various parts of
the tower such as the main body and the tower arms are repre-
sented by equivalent vertical and/or horizontal transmission line
segments as required. This technique allows for a straightfor-
ward inclusion of nonuniformities, distributed losses and wave
speed variations.
The proposed model has been validated using experimental
data obtained using a reduced scale model and two field exper-
iments and a very good agreement has been found.
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J. A. Gutiérrez R., photograph and biography not available at the time of
publication.
P. Moreno, photograph and biography not available at the time of publication.
J. L. Naredo, photograph and biography not available at the time of publication.
J. L. Bermúdez, photograph and biography not available at the time of publi-
cation.
M. Paolone, photograph and biography not available at the time of publication.
C. A. Nucci, photograph and biography not available at the time of publication.
F. Rachidi, photograph and biography not available at the time of publication.