‫جمهورية العراق‬

‫وزارة التعليم العالي والبحث العلمي‬

‫جامعة الموصل‪/‬كلية الهندسة‬

‫‪Lightning over voltages‬‬

‫تقرير مقدم كجزء من متطلبات االمتحان النهائي لمادة‬

‫(المختبرات)‬

‫للمرحلة الرابعة ‪/‬القدرة والمكائن‬

‫في قسم الهندسة الكهربائية‬

‫التقرير مقدم من قبل الطالب‬

‫مروان محمد علوان هزاع‬

‫بأشراف‬
‫د‪ .‬رياض زكي‬
‫‪2019-2020‬‬
Introduction
It is essential for electrical power engineers to reduce the number of outages and
preserve the continuity of service and electric supply. Therefore, it is necessary to direct
special attention towards the protection of transmission lines and power apparatus from
the chief causes of over voltages in electric systems, namely lightning over voltages
and switching over voltages. Interest in lightning by high voltage engineers is justified
by the fact that lightning strikes generally constitute a major cause of high-voltage
transmission line outages and of occasional substation equipment damage (Hileman,
1999). Lightining overvoltage is a natural phenomenon, while switching over voltages
originate in the system itself by the connection and disconnection of circuit breaker
contacts or due to initiation or interruption of faults. Switching over voltages are highly
damped short duration over voltages.
They are "temporary over voltages" of power frequency or its harmonic frequency
either sustained or weakly damped and originate in switching and fault clearing
processes in power systems. Although both switching and power frequency over
voltages have no common origin, they may occur together, and their combined effect
is important in insulation design. Probability of lightning and switching over voltages
coinciding together is very small and hence can be neglected. The magnitude of
lightning voltages appearing on transmission lines does not depend on line design and
hence lightning performance tends to improve with increasing insulation level, that is
with system voltage. On the other hand, switching over voltages are proportional to
operating voltage. Hence, there is a system operating voltage at which the emphasis
changes from lightning to switching surge design, this being important above 500 kV.
In the range of 300 kV to 765 kV, both switching over voltages and lightning over
voltages have to be considered, while for ultra-high voltages (> 700 kV), perhaps
switching surges may be the chief condition for design considerations.
For the study of over voltages a basic knowledge of the origin of over voltages, surge
phenomenon, and its propagation is desirable. The present chapter is therefore devoted
to a summary of the above topics.
Cloud formation and charging are obvious prerequisites for incidence of lightning.
There seems to be broad agreement that the following phenomena are significant
although no consensus exists on their exact quantitative role in the charging mechanism
(Simpson and Scrase, 1937; Mason, 1958; Williams,1989; Saunders, 1993)

1
NATURAL CAUSES FOR OVERVOLTAGES —
LIGHTNING PHENOMENON
Lightning phenomenon is a peak discharge in which charge accumulated in the clouds
discharges into a neighbouring cloud or to the ground. The electrode separation, i.e.
cloud-to-cloud or cloud-to-ground is very large, perhaps 10 km or more. The
mechanism of charge formation in the clouds and their discharges is quite a
complicated and uncertain process. Nevertheless, a lot of information has been
collected since the last fifty years and several theories have been put forth for
explaining the phenomenon. A summary of the various processes and theories is
presented in this section.

Charge Formation in the Clouds

The factors that contribute to the formation or accumulation of charge in the clouds are
too many and uncertain. But during thunderstorms, positive and negative charges
become separated by the heavy air currents with ice crystals in the upper part and rain
in the lower parts of the cloud. This charge separation depends on the height of the
clouds, which range from 200 to 10,000 m, with their charge centres probably at a
distance of about 300 to 2000 m. The volume of the clouds that participate in lightning
flashover are uncertain, but the charge inside the cloud may be as high as 1 to 100 C.
Clouds may have a potential as high as 107 to 108 V with field gradients ranging from
100 V/cm within the cloud to as high as 10 kV/cm at the initial discharge point The
energies associated with the cloud discharges can be as high as 250 kWh. It is believed
that the upper regions of the cloud are usually positively charged, whereas the lower
region and the base are predominantly negative except the local region, near the base
and the head, which is positive. The maximum gradient reached at the ground level due
to a charged cloud may be as high as 300 V/cm, while the fair weather gradients are
about 1 V/cm. A probable charge distribution model is given in Fig.1 with the
corresponding field gradients near the ground

Fig1. Probable field gradient near the ground corresponding to the

probable charge distribution in a cloud.

2
According to the Simpson's theory (Fig.1) there are three essential regions in the cloud
to be considered for charge formation. Below region A, air currents travel above 800
cm/s, and no raindrops fall through. In region A, air velocity is high enough to break
the falling raindrops causing a positive charge spray in the cloud and negative charge
in the air. The spray is blown upwards, but as the velocity of air decreases, the
positively charged water drops recombine with the larger drops and fall again. Thus
region A, eventually becomes predominantly positively charged, while region B above
it, becomes negatively charged by air currents. In the upper regions in the cloud, the
temperature is low (below freezing point) and only ice crystals exist The impact of air
on these crystals makes them negatively charged, thus the distribution of the charge
within the cloud becomes as shown in Fig.1.

Fig.2 Schematic diagram of cloud charge zones. (From Simpson, G. and Scrase,
F.J., Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A, 161, 309, 1937)

• Updraft of warm air due to heating at ground surface or due to encounter between
cold and warm fronts
• Formation at different ambient temperatures (altitudes) of water drops, small ice
crystals and large graupels, and collisions among those particles with resulting charge
separation
• Smaller particles being blown upward by wind and heavier particles falling down
under gravity
• Formation and upward movement of space charge due to corona from plants and
bushes (point discharge)
• Electric induction and polarization of particles under the effect of electric field within
the cloud
• Elongation and disintegration of water drops, which set an upper limit on water drop
size.
• Disintegration of water drops due to strong wind speeds.

3
A schematic diagram of cloud charge zones (Simpson and Scrase, 1937) is shown in
Figure2. It should be noted, however, that this is necessarily a simplified picture due
to the following arguments:
• Charge is more likely to be localized in discrete centers rather than the continuous
volume charge distributions implied.
• The real situation is not static but time dependent with continuous interaction between
charge centers and ultimate local breakdowns.
• A resulting static charge model will obviously comprise a main dipole with positive
charge at the cloud top, negative charge lower down, and a much smaller positive point
charge near the cloud base. Such model is probably valid for electric field estimates at
ground level but will be of limited validity for assessment of conditions within the
cloud.
• It is not clear how the charge redistribution and recovery process following a lightning
strike, normally characterized by times of roughly 10 s, really takes place.

Rate of Charging of Thunder Clouds

Mason considered thunder clouds to consist of a uniform mixture of positive and
negative charges. Due to hail stones and air currents the charges separate vertically. If
X is a factor which depends on the conductivity of the medium, there will be a resistive
leakage of charge from the electric Held built up, and this should be taken into account
for cloud charging.
Let E be the electric field intensity, v be the velocity of separation of charges, and p
the charge density in the cloud. Then, the electric field intensity £ is given by

𝒅𝑬
+ 𝛌𝑬 = 𝝆𝒗 )1(
𝒅𝒕

𝜌𝑣
Hence 𝐸= [1 − exp (−𝛌𝐭) (2)
𝛌
This equation assumes initially E = 0 at t = 0, the start of charge separation, i.e. there
is no separation initially. Let Q, be the separated charge and Qg be the generated
charge, then
Q𝑔
𝝆= (3)
𝐴ℎ

and 𝐸 = 𝑄𝑠⁄𝐴ԑ )4(

4
where ԑ is the permittivity of the medium, A is the cloud area and h is the height of
the charged region. From Eq. (8.2), on substitution

𝑄𝑠ℎ 𝑀
𝑄𝑔 = = (5)
𝑣[1−exp (−𝛌𝑡)] 𝑣[1−exp (−𝛌𝐭)]

where M=Qs.h the electric moment of the thunder-storm. The average values observed
for thunder-clouds are:

1
time constant = = 20𝑠
𝛌
electric moment M = 110 C-km and time for first lightning flash to appear, t = 20 s
The velocity of separation of charges, v = 10 to 20 m/s.
Substituting these values, we get

20000 20000 𝑚
𝑄𝑔 = ∗𝐶 = ∗ 𝐶 = 1000𝐶 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑣 = 20
𝑣 20 𝑠
Calculations using Mason's theory show that a maximum charge transfer of 3 x 10-3 T
esu/cm2 of contact surface for a contact period of 0.01 s, where T is the temperature
difference The theory and observations of Reynolds et al., gave values of 5x 10-9 esu
per crystal impact for a temperature difference of 5ºC. Mason's theory seems to give
much higher values, yet it explains the phenomenon satisfactorily.

Mechanism of Lightning Strokes

When the electric Held intensity at some point in the charge concentrated cloud
exceeds the breakdown value of the moist ionized air (10 kV/cm), an electric streamer
with plasma starts towards the ground with a velocity of about 1/10 times that of the
light, but may progress only about 50 m or so before it comes to a halt emitting a
bright flash of light The halt may be due to insufficient build-up of electric
charge at its head and not sufficient to maintain the necessary field gradient for further
progress of the streamer. But after a short interval of about 100us, the streamer again
starts out repeating its performance. The total time required for such a stepped leader
to reach the ground may be 20 ms. The path may be quite lustruous, depending on the
local conditions in air as well as the electric field gradients. Branches from the initial
leader may also be formed. Since the progress of this leader stroke is by a series of
jumps, it is referred as stepped leader. The picture of a typical leader stroke taken with
a Boy's camera is shown in Fig.3.

5
 The lightning stroke and the electrical discharges due to lightning are explained based
on the "streamer" or "kanel" theory for spark discharges in long gaps with non-uniform
electric fields. The lightning consists of few separate discharges starting from a leader
discharge and culminates in return strokes or main discharges. The velocity of the
leader stroke of the first discharge may be 1.5 x 10 7 cm/s, of the succeeding leader
strokes about 108 cm/s, and of the return strokes may be 1.5 x 109 to 1.5 x 1010 cm/s
(about 0.05 to 0.5 times the velocity of light).

Fig.3. Propagation of a stepped leader stroke from a cloud

( Bright tips recorded)
Discussion

We co We conclude from this that one of the most important causes that lead to excessive voltages
due to lightning strikes
1- Direct strike on the electrical conductor.
2- A reaction to the basic blow.
3- The increase in the voltages resulting from the eruption.
Thunderstorms and lightning conditions are among the most dangerous types on electricity
networks Where the electric shock begins when the electric field on the water droplets is higher
than the intensity of the air collapse, which is approximately (1MV/m) inside the water droplets.
The stunning light consists of large numbers of consecutive strikes, all on the same path, but most
of them end up in the air nclude from this that one of the most important causes that lead to
excessive voltages due to lightning strikes ,Direct strike on the electrical conductor, A reaction to
the basic blow ,The increase in the voltages resulting from the eruption, Thunderstorms and
lightning conditions are among the most dangerous types on electricity networks Where the
electric shock begins when the electric field on the water droplets is higher than the intensity of
the air collapse, which is approximately (1) inside the water droplets. The stunning light consists
of large numbers of consecutive strikes, all on the same path, but most of them end up in the air

6
References
1- Wadhwa. C.L.2007. High voltage engineering. University of Delhi.
2-RZK. FaroukA.M. Trinh. Giaon.2014.High voltage engineering Taylor
& Francis Group.
3- Naidu.MS.Kamaraju.v.1996.High voltage engineering.
4- Ryan. Edited by Hugh.2013.High-Voltage Engineering and Testing
3rd Edition
5- Naidu.MS.1995.high voltage Engineering.second Edition