Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
The the transmission line (TL) model of the lightning return stroke (Uman and
McLain, 1969 [1]) has been widely used in various lightning electromagnetic pulse
(LEMP) calculations. This model assumes that a current wave, injected at the lightning
channel base, propagates upward along the channel without attenuation or distortion.
In this paper, we use a lumped voltage source in the TL model of the lightning return
stroke generalized to include both a grounded strike object and an upward connecting
leader launched from the top of the strike object. The structure of this paper is as
follows. In section II.A, based on the lossless transmission line representation of a
lightning strike to a tall grounded object launching an electrically long upward
connecting leader, we derive expressions for current along the strike object and along
the lightning channel (both above and below the leader junction point), as a function of
the lightning short-circuit current. In sections II.B, C, and D, we also derive
expressions for current along the lightning channel and/or the strike object for the
special cases of negligible upward connecting leader length, of negligible strike object
height, and of negligible both upward connecting leader length and strike object
height, respectively.
SECTION II.
Models for Computing Lightning Electric and Magnetic
Fields
A. Lightning Strike to a Grounded Object Launching an Upward
Connecting Leader
In this section, we will derive expressions for current along a grounded strike object
launching an upward-connecting leader and along the lightning channel using a
configuration shown in Fig. 1(a). It comprises three lossless uniform transmission lines
both above and below the junction point between the descending leader and an
upward-connecting leader launched from the top of the grounded object) and the
. Although in reality the equivalent impedance of the lightning channel varies with
time and both the lightning channel and the strike object are nonuniform transmission
lines, we employ the constant characteristic impedance assumptions. The influence of
these assumptions on calculated electric and magnetic fields is briefly discussed by
Baba and Rakov (2005 [13], Fig. 14). We assume that the current propagation speed
along the grounded object is equal to the speed of light and is equal to along
the lightning channel. Note that there is no impedance discontinuity at the junction
point between the descending and upward-connecting leaders (current reflection
coefficient at this junction is zero). The current reflection coefficient at the bottom of
View Source
The current transmission coefficient at the top of the object for upward-propagating
connecting leader, (c) to flat ground launching an upward-connecting leader of length , and
(d) to flat ground without an upward-connecting leader, represented by lossless transmission
lines connected in series with a lumped voltage source generating an arbitrary voltage
waveform,
, or , and a
the current reflection coefficient at the bottom of the strike object, and is the
current reflection coefficient at the channel base for the flat-ground case.
View All
Currents along the lightning channel above the junction point between the descending
occurring at the ends of the strike object, and is the return stroke wavefront speed
that is equal to the current wave propagation speed along the transmission lines
representing the lightning leader channels considered here [see Fig. 1(a)]. Note that in
deriving (2a), (2b), and (2c) we used the definition of the lightning short-circuit
current given by
View Source The lightning short-circuit current is the lightning current that would be
Connecting Leader
Current along the lightning channel in the absence of