By

Anish John paul. M

Head of School
School of Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Lightning
Lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge during

an electric storm between electrically charged regions

of a cloud (called intra-cloud lightning or IC), between
that cloud and another cloud (CC lightning), or
between a cloud and the ground (CG lightning).
Lightning is generated in electrically charged storm
systems, but the method of cloud charging still
remains elusive.

Water Cycle
Evaporation

is the
process by which a liquid
absorbs
heat
and
changes to a vapor.
Condensation is the
process by which a vapor
or gas loses heat and
turns into a liquid.

Electrical Storms
In an electrical storm, the storm clouds are charged like

giant capacitors in the sky. The upper portion of the cloud

is positive and the lower portion is negative.
As the process of evaporation and condensation continues,
these droplets collide other moisture that is in the process
of condensing as it rises. Also, the rising moisture may
collide with ice or sleet that is in the process of falling to
the earth .
The importance of these collisions is that electrons are
knocked off of the rising moisture, thus creating a charge
separation.

 The newly knocked-off electrons gather at the lower

portion of the cloud, giving it a negative charge.

The rising moisture that has just lost an electron
carries a positive charge to the top of the cloud.
Beyond the collisions, freezing plays an important
role. The frozen portion becomes negatively charged
and the unfrozen droplets become positively charged.

 When there is a charge separation in a cloud, there is

also an electric field that is associated with the

separation. Like the cloud, this field is negative in the
lower region and positive in the upper region.
The strength or intensity of the electric field is directly
related to the amount of charge build up in the cloud.
As the collisions and freezing continue to occur and
the charges at the top and bottom of the cloud
increase, the electric field becomes more and more
intense.

 As the separation of charge proceeds in the cloud, the

potential difference between the centers of charges

increases and the vertical electric field along the cloud also
increases.
The total potential difference between the two main charge
centers may vary from l00 to 1000 MV.
Only a part of the total charge-several hundred coulombsis released to earth by lightning; the rest is consumed in
intercloud discharges.
All that is needed now is a conductive path for the
negative cloud bottom to contact the positive earth surface.

Air Ionization
The strong electric field causes the air around the cloud to

"break down,
the air breakdown creates a path that short-circuits the
cloud/earth as if there were a long metal rod connecting
the cloud to the earth.
The electric field causes the surrounding air to become
separated into positive ions and electrons -- the air
is ionized.
the process of ionization, which creates plasma, also occurs
through the loss of electrons.
After the ionization process, the path between the cloud
and the earth begins to form.

Step Leaders
The channel to earth is first established by a stepped discharge
called a leader stroke.
There are usually many separate paths of ionized air stemming

from the cloud. These paths are typically referred to as step

leaders.
The step leaders propagate toward the earth in stages, which do
not have to result in a straight line to the earth. The air may not
ionize equally in all directions.
If the lower surface of the cloud is not straight, the flux lines will
not be uniform.
The leader that reaches the earth first reaps the rewards of the
journey by providing a conductive path between the cloud and
the earth. This leader is not the lightning strike; it only maps
out the course that the strike will follow.

Stepped Leader

Positive Streamers and Exploding

Air
As the step leaders approach the earth, objects on the

surface begin responding to the strong electric field.

The objects reach out to the cloud by
"growing" positive streamers.
The human body can and does produce these positive
streamers when subjected to a strong electric field
such as that of a storm cloud.
The streamers wait patiently, stretching upward as the
step leaders approach.

Streamers

 After the step leader and the streamer meet, the ionized air (plasma)

has completed its journey to the earth, leaving a conductive path from
the cloud to the earth.
Since there is an enormous amount of current in a lightning strike,
there is also an enormous amount of heat.
The air around the strike becomes extremely hot. So hot that it
actually explodes because the heat causes the air to expand so rapidly.
The explosion is soon followed by what we all know as thunder.
The corresponding current heats its path to temperatures up to
20,000C, causing the explosive air expansion that is heard thunder.
In air, sound travels roughly 1 mile every 4.5 seconds. Light travels at a
blazing 186,000 miles (299,000 kilometers) per second.
The current pulse rises to its crest in a few micro seconds and decays
over a period of tens or hundreds of microseconds.

LIGHTNING PHENOMENON

Facts about Lightning

A strike can average 100 million volts of Electricity
Current of up to 100,000 amperes
Can generate 54,000 oF

Lightning strikes somewhere on the Earth every

second
Kills hundreds of people every year

Types of Strikes and Types of

Lightning
Cloud to ground -Discussed previously
Ground to cloud -The same as above with the exception that

usually a tall, earth-bound object initiates the strike to the cloud

Cloud to cloud - Also the same mechanics as discussed above
except the strike travels from one cloud to another
Types of Lightning
Normal lightning - Discussed previously
Sheet lightning - Normal lightning that is reflected in the
clouds
Heat lightning - Normal lightning near the horizon that is
reflected by high clouds
Ball lightning - A phenomenon where lightning forms a slow,
moving ball that can burn objects in its path before exploding or
burning out

RECAP
On Earth, lightning begins with the water cycle. As the sun heats the planet,
moisture heads for the skies in the form of vapor. Given enough moisture,

a cloud will form.

Due to updrafts, downdrafts, freezing and particle collisions, storm clouds
become positively charged at the top and negatively charged at the bottom.
This separation of charges goes hand in hand with an electric field. As the
charge separation grows stronger, so does the associated electric field.
Eventually, an intense electric field can cause the air around the cloud to break
down, or become ionized, allowing current to flow through the ionized air (or
plasma) and potentially neutralize the charge separation. The path of ionized
air is called a step leader.
Meanwhile, the positive charge is getting bigger on the Earths surface below,
and objects (including people) respond locally to this strong electric field by
sending out positive streamers.
When a streamer and a step leader meet, they can form a complete path for
lightning to travel from the cloud to the ground (other types of lightning follow
a slightly different process). After this fateful meeting, the lightning strike
occurs.
Lastly, the air around the strike heats up and expands so much that it causes a
shock wave in the form of a sound wave to radiate away from the strike path.

Lightning Rods
Lightning rods were originally developed by Benjamin

Franklin.
A lightning rod is very simple -- it's a pointed metal
rod attached to the roof of a building. The rod might
be an inch (2 cm) in diameter.
It connects to a huge piece of copper or aluminum
wire that's also an inch or so in diameter.
The wire is connected to a conductive grid buried in
the ground nearby.

Lightning Safety
More than 1,000 people get struck by lightning every

year in the United States, and more than 100 of them

die as a result of the strike.
Appropriate shelter would be a building or a car.
If you do not have anywhere to go, then you should
avoid taking shelter under trees. Trees attract
lightning.
Never lay down on the ground.
If you are indoors, stay off the phone

Lightning Voltage Surges

The most severe lightning stroke is that which strikes a phase

conductor on the transmission line.

It produces the highest overvoltage for a given stroke current.
The lightning stroke injects its current into a termination
impedance Z, which in this case is half the line surge impedance
Zo. since the current will flow in both directions as shown in
Figure. Therefore, the voltage surge magnitude at the striking
point is
V =( )Izo (1)

The lightning current magnitude is rarely less than 10 kA.

For typical overhead line surge impedance Zo of 300 , the

lightning surge voltage will probably have a magnitude in excess

of 1500 kV.

EFFECT OF LIGHTNING