Effect of Grounding System On Electromagnetic Fields Around Building Struck by Lightning

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO.

8, AUGUST 2010 2955

Effect of Grounding System on Electromagnetic Fields Around Building


Struck by Lightning
Bo Zhang, Jinliang He, Fellow, IEEE, Rong Zeng, and Shuiming Chen
State Key Lab of Power Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

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.

I. INTRODUCTION of complex resistivity, which is the combination of the permit-


tivity and the resistivity, is used to solve the fields in the air and
in the soil.

W HEN lightning strikes a building, high current will flow


through the metallic grid and will dissipate into the soil
from the grounding system. This accident will generate strong
II. NUMERICAL APPROACH
To calculate the electromagnetic field around the building
transient electromagnetic fields, which may affect the safety of struck by lightning, current distribution on the structure should
the electrical and electronic units contained inside the building. be obtained first. This is because the metal structure of a building
Thus, the computation of the current distribution and the elec- and that of the grounding system can be regarded as a filament
tromagnetic fields is an interesting and important engineering structure. MoM is used to calculate the current distribution and
problem [1]–[4]. the structure should be divided into short segments first [9].
To calculate the current distribution and the electromagnetic Since the size of the building is much less than the wavelength
fields of a building, the grounding structure is usually neglected associated with the maximum significant frequency of the light-
[1], [2], [4]. In fact, when lightning occurs, the inductance ning current waveform, near-field theory can ensure satisfac-
along the grounding electrode will take effect and the leakage tory numerical accuracy. Based on the concept of complex re-
current will be concentrated around the lightning current in- sistivity, the leakage currents can be introduced not only in the
jected point [5]. The ground potential will be distributed very soil but also in the air. Thus, to set up equations, some assump-
unevenly. Thus, the current distribution and the electromag- tions of current distribution can be used as follows.
netic fields will be affected by the potential differences among 1) Each segment can be considered as a filament.
the grounding points. When the electromagnetic fields around 2) The longitudinal current in the same segment is constant,
buildings near the lightning struck point are investigated, or which is equal to that at the middle point of the segment.
when a building has a separated grounding system, the effect 3) The leakage currents are distributed evenly around the
of the grounding systems must be considered [3]. Meanwhile, nodes (the intersections among the segments). Each
there are many papers about the lightning performance of a leakage current is the algebraic sum of the longitudinal
grounding system [5]–[7], but few of them consider the effect currents of the segments connected to the corresponding
of the metal structure of a building. Since the building has node. It means that each current leaks evenly from all of
many grounding points, the grounding system and the metal the half segments connected to the node.
structure above the ground will affect each other. Reference Fig. 1 shows the current distribution where and are the
[8] presented a circuit method to take the building and the nodes; , , , and are the middle points of the
grounding system into account altogether, but it neglected the corresponding segments; and are the leakage currents at
impedance of the conductor itself. node and node , respectively; , , , and are
In this paper, an approach which can take into account all of the longitudinal currents of the corresponding segments.
the conductors under the ground and above the ground is pro- In order to make the current from one medium to the other
posed to analyze the current distribution and the electromagnetic continuous, at the interface of the media, the conductor should
field of a building struck by lightning. The approach is based on be divided as shown in Fig. 1(c). To take into account the vertical
the moment method (MoM) and the circuit theory. The concept electrode of the grounding system, only a half segment should
be left at the end of the electrode (we suppose that the other half
segments do not exist) and the longitudinal current is set to be
Manuscript received December 22, 2009; accepted April 06, 2010. Current zero as shown in Fig. 1(d).
version published July 21, 2010. Corresponding author: B. Zhang (e-mail: On the surface of each segment, the boundary condition must
shizbcn@tsinghua.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online be satisfied
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2010.2048307 (1)
0018-9464/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
2956 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 46, NO. 8, AUGUST 2010

where is a column vector of leakage currents around the


nodes as shown in Fig. 1, and is a matrix of mutual resistances
between nodes. From the assumptions of the current distribu-
tion, is equal to the potential at node when a unit current
is leaked evenly from all half segments connected to node . For
example, in Fig. 1 can be obtained by

(5)

where is the mutual resistance between node and the


half segment from middle point to node , is the number
of the segments connected to node .
The former two terms of (2) reflect the effect of the longitu-
dinal components of the external electric fields of the segments.
The last terms of (2) reflect the effect of the longitudinal com-
ponents of the internal electric fields of the segments.
According to the longitudinal current and leakage current dis-
tribution in Fig. 1, and have the following relationship:
(6)

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).

III. COMPLEX RESISTIVITY


where is a matrix of the inductances between segments,
is a column vector of the potentials at the nodes, is a column In order to take into account the metallic grids under the
vector of the longitudinal currents in the segments, and is a ground and above the ground altogether, the concept of com-
diagonal matrix of the segments’ internal self-resistances [10]. plex resistivity is used to calculate the mutual resistance in (5),
is a matrix reflecting the connection relationship between seg- which is the combination of the permittivity and the resistivity
ments and nodes whose entries are of the medium
(8)
if node is connected to the end of
segment
where and are the resistivity and the permittivity of the
if node is connected to the head
medium. Both the air and the soil have their own complex re-
end of segment
sistivity. In the air, the permittivity will present the most contri-
if node is not directly connected to
bution in (8), and . While in the soil, the resistivity
segment
will present the most contribution, and .
The entry in can be obtained by [11] Based on the image theory, Green’s function is used to cal-
culate the mutual resistance in (5) and to calculate the electric
(3) field.

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

Fig. 5. A building with several separated grounding systems.

Fig. 2. Calculated model.

Fig. 6. Magnetic fields of the direct lightning strike.


Fig. 3. Profiles of the electric-field attenuation along the line CD.

to a far place through the conductor when the resistivity of soil


is great.

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.

that the potential differences among the grounding systems


change the current distribution in the metal structure.

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.

Fig. 8. Magnetic fields of a nearby lightning strike. REFERENCES


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