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Effect of Grounding System On Electromagnetic Fields Around Building Struck by Lightning
Effect of Grounding System On Electromagnetic Fields Around Building Struck by Lightning
In this paper, based on the moment method and the circuit theory, an approach is proposed to analyze the current distribution and
the electromagnetic field of a building struck by lightning. By introducing the concept of complex resistivity in the air and the soil, the
approach can consider the metallic grids under the ground and above the ground altogether. Both the potential differences among the
grounding parts and the electromagnetic interactions among the grids are taken into account. It shows that the resistivity of soil will
affect the electromagnetic field greatly. When the electromagnetic fields around buildings near the lightning struck point are investigated,
or when a building has a separated grounding system, the effect of the grounding systems must be considered.
Index Terms—Buildings, grounding, lightning, moment methods.
(5)
Fig. 1. Current distribution on the segments. (a) At the junction of two seg- where is the transpose of . By substituting (6) into (4) and
ments. (b) At the junction of multisegments. (c) At the interface of the media. then into (2), a group of equations is obtained as
(d) At the end of a electrode.
(7)
If segment has an injected current , the corresponding
where is the longitudinal component of the external elec-
equation can be substituted by . Thus, a group of equa-
tric field caused by both interactions among the longitudinal
tions with longitudinal currents as unknown variables is ob-
currents and the leakage currents from the segments, is the
tained from which the longitudinal currents can be solved. Then,
longitudinal component of the internal electric field caused by
the leakage currents can also be solved by (7), and the electro-
the internal self-resistances. For all segments, by integrating (1)
magnetic field can be obtained. At each frequency, there is a cor-
along the longitudinal direction between their two ends, the fol-
responding result. The transient electromagnetic fields around
lowing equation will be obtained:
the multiline structures by near-field lightning strokes can be
(2) analyzed with the help of fast Fourier transform (FFT).
IV. VALIDATION
where and are the paths of segment and segment , and The results of the approach in this paper were compared with
is the distance between the source point and the field point. If the published ones of simulated lightning current (1/40 s, 20
is equal to , is at the axis and is at the surface of segment kA) fed into the upper corner of a Faraday’s cage shown in Fig. 2
. in (2) can be obtained by [2]. The cage is constituted by aluminum barrels having a
mm cross section and has a regular mesh.
(4) The lightning current has a vertical channel length of 400 m.
ZHANG et al.: EFFECT OF GROUNDING SYSTEM ON ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS 2957
V. APPLICATIONS
The grounding system of the aforementioned model is uni-
form. In this section, the electromagnetic fields in a building
with several separated grounding systems, as shown in Fig. 5,
will be analyzed. Each grounding system is a 2-m-long ver-
tical electrode. The lightning current is 2.6/50 s, 20 kA. The
building is constituted by round copper with a 20-mm radius.
The channel of the lightning is omitted. Point A and point B
Fig. 4. Profiles of the magnetic-field attenuation along the line CD.
are the central points of the corresponding sections. The elec-
tromagnetic fields in the following part are the square roots of
In Figs. 3 and 4, the attenuation along the line CD produced the three orthogonal components.
by the cage is shown, where the ratios between the EM fields
produced by the lightning with or without the presence of the A. Direct Lightning Strike
cage are reported. In the case of the lightning without the cage, First, the electromagnetic fields at point A and point B are
the lightning channel has been prosecuted until the ground. calculated when the lightning current is fed into the upper corner
used in the figure is the ratio of the maximum electric field with of the building directly. Figs. 6 and 7 show the electromagnetic
the cage to that without the cage. is the ratio of the maximum fields at these two points with perfect soil and 100- m soil.
magnetic field with the cage to that without the cage. In [2], the From Figs. 6 and 7, it can be seen that the electric fields and
soil is considered as a perfect conductor. In this paper, the results the magnetic fields are affected by the soil resistivity greatly re-
with perfect soil and those with a 1-m depth grounding system gardless of where the observation point is. The maximal mag-
in 100- m soil are presented. netic field is much greater if the soil resistivity is considered.
It can be seen that when the soil is considered as a perfect The maximal electric field near the lightning struck point like
conductor, the results in this paper are in agreement with those point A is almost not affected by the soil resistivity, but that at
in [2]. For the electric field, its attenuation along the line CD point B is much greater if the soil resistivity is considered. All of
almost does not vary with the resistivity of soil. However, for the waveforms of the magnetic fields are almost the same as that
the magnetic field, its attenuation near D varies greatly with the of the lightning current, but the rise times of the electric fields
resistivity of soil. This may be because the current likes flowing are shorter than that of the lightning current, especially when the
2958 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO. 8, AUGUST 2010
Fig. 7. Electric fields of the direct lightning strike. Fig. 9. Electric fields of a nearby lightning strike.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an approach is proposed to analyze the current
distribution and the electromagnetic field of a building struck by
lightning based on the moment method and the circuit theory.
All conductors under the ground and above the ground can be
taken into account. It shows that the soil resistivity affects the
electromagnetic field greatly. The grounding system should be
considered when the electromagnetic fields around the building
by either a direct lightning strike or nearby lightning strike are
analyzed.