Preventing Lightning Strikes

You can't prevent a lightning strike frying your system. The energy discharged from a lightning bolt is huge. All that a lightning rod does is give a better chance of the bolt hitting the rod than anywhere else nearby. In so doing it is protecting installations around it by lessening the probability of a strike there instead.

All a lightning rod does is increase the probability of lightning striking it rather than elsewhere nearby.

Think Faraday Cage.

are all tall structures left to chance then? surely there must be a tested way not to get fried. also, is it true that on a campus or an area lightning will strike the tallest and seek a quick path to the earth. if the structure was a conductor, it could be the proverbial lightning rod; if not- like say a dry tree- it will burn.

and hello, how do aircrafts escape lightning strikes?

Aircraft get hit regularly, but as they only are a relatively high resistive path to ground when flying, it usually does no damage at all.....

Becuz aircraft are not earthed to Earth!. Lightning is a series of voltage/current between clouds & Earth till the hi-potential neutralises- hi-pot will always find the easiest path to equilbrium- as will every force-energy- quite possibly it comes from dynamics of our energy balance to movement on a solar scale, as experienced locally, over our global environement.

Lightening is a complicated Phenomena.The aircraft also gets hit .Mostly cloud to ground discharges as pointed out due to high resistance nothing happens. However when we consider the possibility of a cloud to cloud discharge and if an in air craft was in between then it gets charred.But with equipments available pilots keep safe distance from such clouds and possibility.

You are completely forgetting that an aircraft, like a car, is a Faraday cage......look it up....

For the bank, you need to have a tower or structure over your equipment to be protected, install lightning rods and feed them into the ground as far away from your equipment as possible.

Do not link up the grounds as due to the massive voltage in a strike, the ground connections work like a resistor and you get back feeding into your equipment. Which is why you want to go to ground (earth) as far away as possible)

There are special semiconductors that can short pulses of high voltage to ground, put them everywhere that needs to be protected, they are not 100%, but will prevent a lot of damage. I have no idea what they are called, sorry....surge arrestors or similar.....

Read all you can about lightning protection before starting and do not work on the tower or near it when strikes could happen.....put up the tower/rods last!!

It is better in such cases NOT to be on the top of a hill as you make your area even more attractive to lightning than in a valley just by being there!!

Response #4 is actually the best method of lightning protection. Lightning strokes to earth cannot be prevented so the idea is to try and control them. A single tall mast or structure located such that the area to be protected from direct strokes falls within about a 30 degree shielding angle (from the top of the structure) around the shielding structure (which is solidly grounded through a low footing resistance) will provide protection. However, the possibility of shielding failure still exists.

Shielding failures can be minimized by installing multiple shielding structures around the area to be protected; paying particular attention to the direction of prevailing storms, thereby effectively enclosing the area in a Faraday Cage.

One can also take advantage of the surrounding terrain; low-lying areas, tall trees, etc. to minimize the probability of direct strokes.

A very good and correct method . 100 out of 100

Go to homepower.com. You must be aware of this magazine if you are using Wind & Solar. Are you in the mid-west?

Good luck,

James

Thanks to all Respondant.

I had found my answer, if anybody interest, please, look into the following: -

Wind Turbine Lightning protection project.

National Renewable Energy Laboratary.

file number NREL/SR-500-31115

Again, thanks you all.

Electrical disruptions from a "nearby" electrical strike are adequate to fry almost any type of sensitive equipment currently available on the market today. The strike doesnt have to be directly to the equipment. Even if your equipment is not effected by electrical waves, the thermally generated sonic wave is enormous and can destroy most sensitive equipment. So I would just install a lightning rod and hope for the best.

I guess it would be protected if the equipment were located underground, but obviously that is not appropriate for solar panels.

How about a early emitter system to draw the energy to a pre determined location