IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 41, NO.

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Using EMTP for Evaluation of Surge Current Distribution in Metallic Gridlike Structures
Qi-Bin Zhou and Y. Du
AbstractThis paper presents a study on the utilization of EMTP (EMTP used for this paper is GNU ATP/Mingw32 running in WINNT OS) in calculating the lightning current distribution in the metallic structure of a building. The structure is modeled as a network of -circuits and represented by three parameter matrices, [R], [L], and [C]. With the modications in EMTP, EMTP can compute the current distribution in the structure in either frequency domain or time domain during a direct stroke to a structure or an indirect stroke near a structure. Subsequently, the impulsive magnetic led inside the structure can be evaluated. The accuracy of this method is veried by a laboratory experiment. A 10 m 10 m 10 m structure is also constructed in the paper for the illustration of both lightning current and magnetic eld evaluations. The results show that EMTP is capable of analyzing lightning currents in the metallic gridlike structure of a building. Index TermsEMTP, lightning current distribution, magnetic eld, metallic structure, -circuit.

Fig. 1. Metallic gridlike structure of a building. (a) Direct striking. (b) Indirect striking.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE lightning protection system (LPS) of a modern building is usually made of reinforcing steel bars. These reinforcing steel bars are physically interconnected to form a gridlike structure. During a direct lightning stroke to a building or an indirect lightning stroke near a building, surge currents are generated and ow in the different parts of the gridlike structure. These currents create impulsive magnetic elds inside the building, and may interfere with or damage sensitive equipment placed in the building. Evaluation of the surge current distribution in a gridlike structure has been addressed for decades [1][8]. Several methods were presented in the literature, among which the lumped circuit method is comparatively simple and capable of evaluating the current distribution directly. In this method, both lightning channel and metallic gridlike structure are simulated by interconnected -circuits, which form an equivalent electrical network. Current distribution in the network is computed by solving nodal equations and loop equations according to Kirchhoffs Law.

EMTP is a universal program for digital simulation of the transient phenomena of electromagnetic as well as electromechanical nature. It can solve lumped circuit problems professionally. However, EMTP was originally designed to solve transmission line problems. It can computer the parameters of simple mutually coupled branches (e.g., less than ten branches) when the -circuit model is used. Therefore, people usually think it is hard or impossible for EMTP to handle a network with a large number of coupled branches [9]. This paper presents a study on the utilization of EMTP in calculating the current distribution in a gridlike structure struck by lightning. A general procedure for EMTP to handle a network with a large number of coupled branches is included in the paper. The accuracy of the surge current calculation by EMTP is veried via a laboratory experiment. A 10 m 10 m 10 m structure was also constructed in the paper for the illustration of both lightning current and magnetic eld evaluations. The results are compared with those presented in other studies. II. -CIRCUIT MODEL OF METALLIC STRUCTURE

Paper ICPSD-05-09, presented at the 2004 Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, October 37, and approved for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Power Systems Protection Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Manuscript submitted for review October 15, 2004 and released for publication April 25, 2005. This work was supported by grants from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Research Committee and by the Research Grants Council of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Q.-B. Zhou is with Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong (e-mail: qibin.zhou@polyu.edu.hk). Y. Du is with the Building Service Engineering Department, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong (e-mail: beydu@polyu.edu.hk). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TIA.2005.851584

In many modern buildings reinforcing steel bars are often adopted as the down conductors of lightning protection systems. These reinforcing steel bars are physically connected to each other and form a gridlike structure, as shown in Fig. 1. During a direct lightning stroke to a building or an indirect stroke near a building, surge currents are generated and ow on the structural reinforcing steel bars due to electric and magnetic coupling. For the purpose of analysis the whole structure is modeled as an equivalent electrical network and the lightning stroke as a current source. The current source is applied to a node of the structure during a direct stroke or to a structure in the vicinity during an indirect stroke. The branches of the structure are divided into short segments, the length of which is shorter than

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the parameter LIMCRD in the STARTUP le (e.g., 149 998 in the current version of EMTP). The way to raise the upper limit of card number is to save the $BRANCH cards in a separate data le, and to link the data le by inserting a $INSERT card in the EMTP input le. The total number of the cards in the input le will not exceed the maximum limit as the cards in the separate data le are not counted.
Fig. 2. Equivalent  -circuit of a segment.

B. Expansion of EMTP Calculation Capability the of the wavelength of the signicant frequency of the lightning current [4]. Each segment is modeled by an equivalent -type circuit, which consists of transverse impedance , and longitudinal capacitance , as shown in Fig. 2. There exist mutual impedance and capacitance between any two segments. Both capacitance and impedance are determined from geometric parameters and material properties of the segments. They can be calculated by using the formulas derived in [10]. The effect of earth is taken into consideration by using the image method. The complex penetration depth based on Deris theory [11] is adopted to determine the location of segment images. Traditionally, the current distribution in a gridlike structure can be calculated by solving nodal equations and loop equations based on Kirchhoff s Law. When the number of branches is signicantly large, it is an advantage to use EMTP as it is the professional software for solving transient problems, including mutually coupled -model problems. The metallic gridlike structure can be treated as a multiphase problem, which consists of a large number of coupled branches. Before executing EMTP, machine-related constants need to be dened. These constants are used to allocate memory in a computer for saving different components of the electrical network, such as LBUS for the bus number, LBRNCH for the branch number, LSWTCH for the switch number, and so on. The executable EMTP le tpbig.exe, which is compiled from the default le LISTSIZE.BPA, can only handle a multiphase system with less than 400 coupled branches. In reality, the metallic structure of a building may consists of thousands of coupled branches. Therefore, it is necessary to generate a new executable le tpbig.exe by recompiling the EMTP les with the appropriate values of LBUS, LBRNCH, LSWTCH, and others in LISTSIZE.BIG. At present, an integrated EMTP package including ATP Launcher is available on EMTP-ATP user group websites. It allows users to increase the calculation capability of the executable le tpbig.exe. This, however, does not mean the capability of EMTP is innite. Actually, it is restricted by the computing power of the computer, especially its memory. C. Calculation in the Frequency Domain and the Time Domain In general, the branch impedance is frequency dependent [10]. The time-domain solution provided by EMTP may not be accurate, as EMTP cannot transfer the impedance parameters at different frequencies into one input les. It is, therefore, necessary to obtain the frequency spectrum of the lightning current source by using the Fourier transform, and to nd the solution in the frequency domain with EMTP. The time-domain currents in conducting branches are then obtained by applying the inverse Fourier transform. It is noted that this method requires signicant computing power as it is necessary to calculate impedance parameters and run tpbig.exe at each discrete frequency in a large range. Since amplitudes of the frequency spectrum of the lightning current source are far from negligible for the frequencies less than 78 MHz [4], the structure inductance plays a dominant role in determining the branch currents. If the earth resistivity is small, the inductance does not vary signicantly in the frequency range of interest. Thus the problem can be tackled in the time domain by a single run of tpbig.exe. The impedance pa( is the time taken rameters at the signicant frequency from zero to the peak value) are adopted, and included in the input le. When the resonance phenomena in the network become signicant, the impedance parameters at the resonant frequency should be adopted as these parameters, especially the resistances, are critical in determining the resonance amplitudes.

III. MODIFICATION IN EMTP Historically, people abandoned EMTP for solving current distribution problems because EMTP was mainly designed to solve the problem with a few number of mutually coupled branches, such as a transmission line system of three phases or six phases. For the system including numerous coupled branches, some modications should be made in EMTP in order to obtain the solution. A. Formation of EMTP $BRANCH Cards In the modern version of EMTP, parameter matrices [R] (resistance), [L] (inductance), and [C] (capacitance) of a horizontal transmission line network in a -circuit model are calculated by using the LCC subroutine in EMTP. These parameter matrices are included in an EMTP input le automatically with $BRANCH cards. The subroutine, however, cannot compute the -circuit parameters of a three-dimensional gridlike structure including lots of vertical and horizontal branches. Therefore, the parameter matrices need to be calculated separately with the methods given in [10], and inserted into the EMTP input le in a dened format. For a metallic structure with coupled branches, the number of $BRANCH cards will be . When the branch number is great, the number of the cards inside the EMTP input le will exceed the upper limit of the card number specied by

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TABLE I PEAK VALUES OF THE BRANCH CURRENT IN MODEL A

TABLE II PEAK VALUES OF THE BRANCH CURRENT IN MODEL B

(a) Fig. 3. Two models for verication . (a) model A (1 m B (1 m 1 m 2 m).

(b)

2 1 m 2 1 m). (b) model

Fig. 4. Experimental setup. 1: impulse current generator; 2: steel structure under test; 3: transient recorder; 4: ground steel plate; and 5: Rogowaski coils with sensitivity 7.65 kA/V.

Fig. 5.

Gridlike structure for computer simulation.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION A. Experimental Setup To verify the results computed by EMTP, an experiment was carried out in a high-voltage laboratory on two different models. Fig. 3 shows the geometry of the two different models. Model A is a cube metallic structure, whose reinforcing steel bars are all 1 m in length and 8 mm in diameter. Model B was developed from Model A by increasing the height of the reinforcing steel bar from 1 to 2 m. Shown in Fig. 4 is the experimental setup for the validation. In the experiment, the waveforms of the total surge current as well as the currents in all vertical branches were recorded. The peak values of these currents were extracted from these recorded waveforms. It is observed that the total surge current has the is peak value of 3.6 kA and the waveform of15/31 s ( the time taken from zero to 50% of the peak value).

noted that a good agreement is achieved between measured and calculated results. The average error in both cases is generally less than 5%. This indicates that EMTP is capable of calculating the surge current distribution in the gridlike metallic structure. V. APPLICATION IN MAGNEITC FIELD EVALUATION Shown in Fig. 5 is a metallic structure, which is 10 m long, 10 m wide, and 10 m high. The mesh size of this structure is 2 m 2 m. The earth is assumed as a perfect conductive plane and the bonding resistance between the structure and the earth is assumed to be zero. The lightning stroke is modeled as an ideal current source, which is injected into the structure at a corner of the structure. The lightning channel is modeled as a vertical conductor with a height of 100 m above the striking point. The physical parameters of the conductive components of the structure are given as follows: reinforcing steel bar radius: 10 mm; /m; resistance: 2.82 10 lightning current peak value: 1 10 A; lightning current waveform: 8/20 s . The structure is modeled as an equivalent electrical network consisting of a number of -circuits. Both impedance matrix and capacitance matrix of the -circuit model are calculated with the methods given in [10]. As the earth resistivity is considered as zero, the impedance is frequency independent.

B. Comparison of Measured and Computed Results The surge current in each reinforcing steel bar is expressed in the form of a percentage, in which the peak value of the total injected current is selected as the base value. Tables I and II show the calculated values of the peak current (in percentage) on each reinforcing steel bar in both Model A and Model B. It is

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Fig. 7. Magnetic eld distribution inside the structure.

Fig. 6. Current distributions in different oors. (a) Top oor. (b) Middle oor. (c) Bottom oor.

The current distribution on the top, the middle, and the bottom oors are shown in Fig. 6. The height of each bar in Fig. 6 is proportional to the ratio of the peak current on the vertical bar at that position to the total peak current at the striking point. The gure near the bar is the value of the peak current in amperes. It is noted that the surge currents tend to be distributed evenly over the oor on a lower oor. After getting the surge current distribution in the structure, impulsive magnetic elds around the structure are calculated by using the BiotSavart law. Fig. 7 shows the results of the impulsive magnetic eld as a function of the coordinate of a point in the declining line, as indicated in Fig. 5. It is noted that inside the gridlike structure, there is a region where the magnetic eld is effectively reduced to a very low level, as shown in Fig. 7. It is the area where sensitive electronic equipment could be safely placed. In an IEC standard [12], an empirical formula is given to calculate the impulsive magnetic eld, as follows: A m (1)

Fig. 8. Comparison of computed results from EMTP and an IEC standard. : computed result from the current distribution calculated by EMTP; : computed result from the formula in IEC standard.

Fig. 8 shows the magnetic elds in the safe volume computed by EMTP and with the empirical formula given in [12]. It is found that the results from both methods match very well. The difference of the peak eld is very small with an average error of 5%. VI. CONCLUSION This paper has presented a study on the utilization of EMTP in calculating the current distribution in a building during a lightning stroke. The steel gridlike structure of the building is modeled as a multiphase -circuit network, which consists of many mutually coupled branches. A general procedure to nd out the surge current distribution in the gridlike structure with EMTP is provided, as follows. 1 ) It is necessary to calculate the -circuit parameters of the gridlike structure with the methods given in [10], and to save these data in an external le in a dened format. The separate data le is linked by inserting a $INSERT card in the EMTP input le. The upper number of branch cards in the input le can be increased by changing the value of machine-related constant LIMCRD in the STARTUP le. 2 ) It is necessary to change the constants in LISTSIZE.BIG according to the size of the coupled network, and to gen-

where is the magnetic eld intensity in the safe volume into the side the structure. It is dened by a distance four sides of the structure. In (1), is the mesh width of the structure, and is the peak value of the lightning current at the striking point. is the shortest distance between the point conis the shortest distance sidered and the roof of the structure. between the point considered and the wall of the structure. is the conguration factor, .

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erate a new executable le tpbig.exe for calculating the current distribution in the structure. 3 ) When a multiphase conductor problem is solved by EMTP in the time domain, the circuit parameters at the signicant frequency or at the resonant frequency if any should be used. When the circuit parameters vary signicantly with frequency it is necessary to solve the problem in the frequency domain although this approach is time consuming. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Dr. W. S. Meyer and Dr. T.-H. Liu for their valuable help during the study. REFERENCES
[1] A. Orlandi, C. Mazzetti, Z. Flisowsk, and M. Yarmarkin, Systematic approach for the analysis of the electromagnetic environment inside a building during lightning strike, IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat., vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 521535, Nov. 1998. [2] C. A. F. Sartori and J. R. Cardoso, EMC aspects in a steel structure struck by lightning, in Proc. IEEE Symp. Electromagnetic Compatibility, Atlanta, GA, Aug. 1995, pp. 248252. [3] A. Ametani, Y. Kasai, J. Sawada, A. Mochizuki, and T. Yamada, Frequency dependent impedance of vertical conductors and a multiconductor tower model, Proc. IEEGeneration, Transmission, Distrib., vol. 141, no. 4, pp. 339345, 1994. [4] S. Cristina and A. Orlandi, Calculation of the induced effects due to a lightning stroke, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., pt. B, vol. 139, no. 4, pp. 374380, July 1992. [5] A. Sowa, Surge current distribution in building during a direct lighting stroke, in Proc. IEEE Symp. Electromagnetic Compatibility, Cherry Hill, NJ, 1991, pp. 103105. [6] S. Kuramoto, M. Sato, and M. Ohta, Surge current and voltage distribution in a reinforced concrete building caused by direct lightning stroke, in Proc. IEEE Symp. Electromagnetic Compatibility, Cherry Hill, NJ, 1991, pp. 8489. [7] A. Geri and G. M. Veca, A complete lightning protection system simulation in the EMI analysis, in Proc. IEEE Symp. Electromagnetic Compatibility, Cherry Hill, NJ, 1991, pp. 9095. [8] M. A. F. Mattos and G. P. Caixeta, Interaction structure lightning and the generated electromagnetic eld, in Proc. IEEE Symp. Electromagnetic Compatibility, Beijing, China, 1992, pp. 281285.

[9] G. F. Li and J. C. Zheng, Lightning current distribution calculation for metallic structures, in Proc. POWERCON98, vol. 1, Beijing, China, Aug. 1998, pp. 1821. [10] Y. Du, S. M. Chen, and J. Burnett, Experimental and numerical evaluation of surge current distribution in building during a direct lightning stroke, HKIE Trans., vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 46, Apr. 2001. [11] A. Deri, G. Tevan, A. Semlyen, and A. Castanheira, The complex ground return plane: A simplied model for homogeneous and multilayer earth return, IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. 100, no. 8, pp. 36863693, Aug. 1981. [12] Protection Against Lightning Electromagnetic ImpulsePart 2: Shielding of Structures, Bonding Inside Structures, and Earthing, IEC Standard 61312-2, 1995.

Qi-Bin Zhou was born in Fujian, China, in 1977. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, in 2000 and 2003, respectively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in the Department of Building Services Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. His research interests are lightning protection and electromagnetic compatibility.

Y. Du received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, in 1984 and 1987, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1994. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Building Services Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. His research interests are electromagnetic environments in buildings, harmonics, and power quality in low-voltage distribution systems. Dr. Du is a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, U.K., and a Chartered Engineer in the U.K.