IX International Symposium on
Lightning Protection
th th
26 -30 November 2007 – Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil
THE EARLY STREAMER EMISSION PRINCIPLE DOES NOT WORK
UNDER NATURAL LIGHTNING !!
Marley Becerra
Division of Electricity and Lightning Research, Uppsala University, Sweden
marley.becerra@angstrom.uu.se
The Ångström Laboratory, Box 534, SE 751 21, Uppsala, Sweden
Abstract - An appropriate evaluation of the efficiency of air
terminals is a key factor for the discussion of the claimed
advantages of the Early Streamer Emission devices ESE
compared to the conventional Franklin rods. In order to
discuss the physical basis and validity of the ESE claim, a
self-consistent physical model is used to simulate the
performance of an air terminal under laboratory and under
natural lightning conditions. It is theoretically shown that
the early initiation of streamers can indeed lead to the sooner
initiation of a self-propagating positive leader in a laboratory
long air gap under switching voltages. However, this is not
the case for positive leaders initiated from the same terminal
under the influence of the electric field produced by the
descent of a downward moving lightning leaders. The time
evolution of the leader development under natural conditions
is different to the case in laboratory, where the leader
inception condition is closely dependant upon the streamer
inititation. This is mainly because of the differences in the
time variation of the electric field applied in laboratory and
that produced by the approach of the downward leader.
Therefore, it is found that the claimed similarity between the
switching electric fields applied in laboratory and the electric
field produced by the descent of a negative downward leader,
used in the literature to extrapolate the early streamer
emission principle to natural lightning, is not true.
1 INTRODUCTION
Since the very moment when the use of air terminals was
proposed by Franklin [1], the efficiency of sharp and blunt
rods to attract lightning flashes has remained open to
question. With time, new different kinds of air terminals
have been introduced in the market, including the Early
Streamer Emission devices ESE [2-6]. The manufacturers
of these devices claim that their terminals have a larger
lightning protection zone than the one offered by a
conventional Franklin rod. These claims are based on the
fact that an earlier initiation of streamers in a laboratory
air gap under switching voltages leads to the reduction of
the leader inititation time and therefore to a shorter time to
breakdown. Since the breakdown in laboratory air gaps is
usually associated with the attachment of the upward and
downward leaders in lightning, this results has been
extended to the natural case. The main assumption of this
Vernon Cooray
vernon.cooray@angstrom.uu.se
extrapolation is that the switching electric fields applied in
laboratory “fairly approximates” the electric fields
produced by the descent of a negative downward moving
leader [2-4].
Consequently, the ESE devices are equipped with a
discharge triggering device to increase the probability of
streamer initiation upon the approach of the downward
leader. This supposedly would enhance the efficiency of
lightning attraction and therefore extend the area of
protection above that of a conventional Franklin rod.
However, the discussion of the efficiency of such air
terminals has been subject of much controversy. This is
because the conditions in the laboratory experiments are
apparently not the same as in the case of natural lightning,
particularly in terms of dimensions [5, 6]. Even though the
best way to evaluate the efficiency of air terminals is to
test them under natural conditions, there are several
practical limitations that make difficult to gather
conclusive experimental evidence from such tests. Thus,
there is a lack of scientific and technical bases either to
reject or to accept these devices [6].
Due to the fact that all the ESE devices have the
common characteristic that they enhance ionization of the
air in the immediate vicinity of the terminal, a major
question that need to be solved is how this additional
ionization acts to enhance the upward leader initiation [6].
This question has to be answered based on the time lag to
leader inititiation and electrical breakdown in laboratory
and the time span between the streamer initiation and the
connection between the downward and the upward leaders
in natural lightning. Given the existing doubts about the
validity and proper interpretation of results of laboratory
experiments regarding the efficiency of ESE devices, the
theoretical simulation of electrical discharges both in
laboratory and in natural lightning is one of the best
available tools for this purpose. Unfortunately, the
problem of time variation of the electrical discharge and
the statistical time lags have been avoided in existing
computer numerical models of discharges [6].
In this paper, a recently proposed physical model for
the evaluation of the inception and propagation of leader
discharges has been used to study the above presented
question. Hence, the initiation and development of positive
leaders considering the time variation of the electric fields
applied in laboratory and those produced by the descent of
the downward leader are simulated. Since this model also
takes into consideration the space charge created by
streamers and aborted leaders, the influence of the streamer
initiation condition on the leader development is evaluated in
this paper. In this way, the physical characteristis of
positive leaders in laboratory and in lightning are
compared.

2 THE MODEL

The development of a positive leader discharge from

an air terminal under laboratory and natural lightning
conditions is simulated with the model described in [7, 8].
This model predicts the initiation and propagation of
positive leaders considering time variations of the existing
background electric field as well as the space charge
created by streamers and aborted leaders. Thus, the main
physical parameters of the leaders, namely the charge per
unit length, potential gradient, channel radius, injected
current and propagation velocity, are self-consistently
computed.
The model used in this paper has been successfully
applied to estimate the unstable and stable leader
inception times [7] as well as the times to breakdown [8]
in laboratory long gaps under switching impulses. In
addition, its predictions regarding upward connecting
lightning leaders have been validated with the results of an
altitude rocket triggered lightning experiment [9]. A good
agreement between the results of the model and the
measured upward leader current, the upward initiation
time and the interception point between both leaders was
found in [7, 8].
In order to take into account the effect of the statistical
variation of the streamer initiation time on the
development of positive leaders, the probability density
pi(t) for streamer inception is evaluated as in [11, 12].
Figure 1 shows the volume around the rod tip in which the
production of an electron leads to corona at two different
applied voltages. Due to the fact that the rate of electron
production in the critical volume changes with humidity
[13], lower values than the ones reported in [12] are used
in this paper in order to consider an extreme case with
high humidity.
3 EARLY STREAMER EMISSION IN
LABORATORY
In order to simulate the conditions under which the early
streamer principle was discovered, an electrode
configuration similar to the one used in [2-4] to compare a
conventional Franklin rod and an ESE device is
considered. It consists of a grounded air terminal 3.5 m
tall and a plane at height 13 m above the ground plane.
Fig. 1. Critical volume for streamer inception of the
considered rod, when 0.5MV (dot-dash line) and 0.8MV
(dashed lines) are applied to the upper plane. The red lines
correspond to the electric field lines.
Since details about the geometry of the tested Franklin rod
are not reported in [2-4], a hemispherically capped rod
with radius of 0.015 m is analysed. For the simulation of
the leader development in laboratory, a switching voltage
impulse waveform with 3.2 MV peak value and 350 µs
risetime is chosen to roughly reproduce the conditions
reported in [2-4].
Figure 1 shows the simulated streak image of a
positive leader propagating in the gap under a switching
voltage impulse. In order to consider the statistical time
lag for streamer inception and its effect on the time to
breakdown, two extreme cases for the streamer inception
times are simulated. The lower extreme (Fig. 1.a)
correspond to the minimum possible streamer inception
time ti(min) given by the streamer inception criterion [13].
The upper limit (Fig. 1.b) is the probabilistic maximum
streamer inception time ti(max) where the probability to
produce an electron to initiate the streamer is close to one
t max
pi (t ) ⋅ dt ≈ 1 . Thus, the streamer inception times for the
0
considered air terminal range between those limits
according to the probability distribution function pi(t)
shown in Figure 1. a. It is found that the the unstable and
stable leader inception times t1’ and t1, as well as the time
to breakdown tB, decrease when the streamer inception
takes place earlier (Fig. 1). The unstable leader inception
corresponds to the moment when the stem of the produced
streamer burst is thermalized and the first leader segment
is created. The stable leader inception condition is given
by the moment when the continuous propagation of the
newly created leader is self-maintained by the existing
electric field. Thus, if a streamer is “triggered” earlier by
either lowering the minimum streamer inception time or
by narrowing the streamer inception probability
distribution function, a reduction of the leader inception
and breakdown times is obtained.
Fig. 2. Simulated streak image of the leader propagation under a
switching voltage impulse for different streamer inception times:
a) the minimum possible streamer inception time, b) the
probabilistic maximum streamer inception time
The reduction of the time to breakdown obtained by
triggering an early streamer agrees with the time-to-
breakdown probability distributions of a conventional
Franklin rod and an ESE device obtained by Berger [4]. In
the same manner, the predicted improvement of the leader
inception time in laboratory air gaps under switching
electric fields by reducing the streamer initiation time,
agrees with the streak images shown in [4]. It was
observed in the laboratory that the leaders initiated from
an ESE device “starts very early, well under the inception
times of the Franklin rod leader” [2]. This fact was found
based on streak images of positive leaders initiated from
an ESE device and from a conventional Franklin rod, as
the one shown in Fig. 3. However, the evaluation of the
leader initiation time in laboratory experiments has to be
carefully analysed [14]. For instance, observe that the
initiation of the leader from the Franklin rod (Fig. 3.b)
does not take place at the moment when the leader
propagation looks continuous (at about 300 µs). Even
though the discharge in the Franklin rod looks like
intermittent bursts of discharge growth during the initial
stage [14], the leader has already started its continuous
propagation. This is because laboratory leaders under long
time to crest have been observed to grow continuously in
length despite of several steps in charge and light
emission [12], as in Fig. 3.b.
Unfortunately it is not possible to make direct
comparison between our predictions (Fig. 2) and the
streak image of the Franklin rod studied in [2-4] (Fig.
3.b). This is because the simulated case does not exactly
corresponds to the experimental conditions in [2-4], since
neither the geometry of the rod or the voltage waveform
were reported. However, note that some features of the
leader propagation in the Franklin rod are consistent with
our predictions, although the steps in light observed in the
experiment cannot be predicted by the model.
Fig. 3. Streak image of the leader propagation in laboratory,
adapted from [2] for a) an ESE device and b) a conventional
Franklin rod. The time scale was estimated from the current
waveforms reported in [2] and the dotted lines show the
estimated position of the leader tip.
Regarding the ESE device, it is interesting to observe in
Fig. 3 that the leader corona from the Franklin rod extends
further than in the case of the ESE device [14]. For the
same leader length, the corona zone in front of the leader
tip is longer for the Franklin rod than for the ESE
terminal. This difference could be produced by the
presence of the triggering circuit in the ESE device or by
differences in the applied voltage in both cases shown in
Fig. 3. Due to the lack of information about the internal
circuit of the ESE terminal used in [4], the authors did not
intend to exactly simulate the leader development from
such device. Nonetheless, similar leader characteristics as
the ones predicted in Fig. 2 can be expected from the ESE
device, given the fact that only a low voltage (up to 15
kV) is applied to the ESE terminal tip by the triggering
unit used in [2-4].
4 POSITIVE LEADERS UNDER LIGHTNING
ELECTRIC FIELDS
As it was observed in the previous section, the triggering
of an early emitted streamer from an air terminal in the
laboratory under swiching voltages can lead to the
reduction of the time to leader initiation and to
breakdown. However, this result has been extrapolated to
the natural conditions of lightning [2-4], arguing that the
leaders in laboratory resemble the upward connecting
lightning leaders. Hence, this reduction on the leader
inception time in the laboratory under switching
waveforms is assumed to be reflected on an early
initiation of upward connecting leaders when the terminal
is exposed to downward lightning leaders. The main
assumption considered in this claim is that the applied
electric field “fairly approximates” the rising electric field
produced by the downward moving leader [2, 4].
In order to evaluate if the switching electric fields applied
in laboratory reproduce a leader propagating under natural
conditions, the simulations are repeated considering the
electric field produced by the descent of a downward
moving leader. For the analysis, a straight negative
downward leader channel descending with an average
velocity Vdown of 2 x 105 m s-1 directly overhead the
terminal is considered. The charge density of the
downward leader channel is computed a function of the
Fig. 4. Comparison between the laboratory switching electric
prospective return stroke peak current according to field and the electric field produced by the descent of a
Cooray et al. [10]. Figure 4 shows the comparison downward leader with different prospective return stroke
between the switching electric field applied in laboratory current.
and the electric fields produced by downward leaders with
different prospective return stroke currents. As suggested
in [4], the waveforms are aligned in time such that the
natural and simulated electric fields coincide at the
moment where ionization processes at the tip of the
terminal take place.
The simulated streak images of the leaders
propagating in the studied laboratory air gap, under
background electric fields corresponding to the approach
of a downward leader with prospective return stroke
current of 3, 5 and 10 kA (Fig. 4), are shown in Fig. 5.
Note that the predicted propagation of the leader under the
lightning electric fields have some different features
compared with the leaders under a switching waveform
(Fig. 2).
In first place, note that the leader length in the
laboratory is shorter under lightning electric fields than
for the “equivalent” switching waveform. The leader
length under the electric field produced by a downward
leader with prospective return stroke current of 5 kA (Fig.
5.b) is about 1 m long at the moment of the final jump,
while the leader for the “equivalent” switching waveform Fig. 5. Simulated streak images of leaders under the electric
in Figure 2.b is three times longer. Secondly, the unstable field produced by the descent of a downward leader with
leader inception time ti’ under lightning electric fields different prospective return stroke current a) 3 kA, b) 5 kA, c)
takes place a long time after the inception of the first 10 kA
streamer ti (ti’- ti is about 120 µs, 200 µs and 350 µs for
prospective return stroke currents of 3, 5 and 10 kA These basic differences are mainly caused by the
respectively) compared with the switching case (ti’- ti is differences in the rate of change of the switching impulses
only about 25 µs in Fig. 2.b). Moreover, more than one and the lightning electric fields (Fig. 4). After the streamer
streamer burst can be produced before the initiation of the inception time ti, the lightning electric fields increase
bridging leader under lightning electric fields. Thirdly, slowly, making the dark period (time where no streamers
the time difference between breakdown tB and stable are produced) longer in comparison with the switching
leader inception t1 in the gap is significantly shorter when case. This dark period ends when the applied electric field
lightning-like electric fields are applied (Fig. 5) than when is high enough to restore the electric field at the tip of the
laboratory switching electric fields are used (Fig. 2). In rod, which is shielded by the space charge injected by the
the former case, the time span tB- t1 is shorter than 40 µs first streamer. After the dark period, a new streamer is
for the three prospective return stroke currents considered produced. Nevertheless, an aborted streamer/leader burst
in this paper, while in the latter case this time spam takes can be produced if the lightning electric field is still
more than 150 µs. changing slowly (Fig. 5.b and 5.c) as to compensate the
voltage drop at the tip of the newly created leader
segment. Otherwise, a continuously leader is incepted.
After the initiation of the self-propagating leader, the
lightning electric fields derivative continues increasing
quickly, enlarging the extension of the streamer corona at
the tip of the leader channel. Since the streamer corona
zone is continously increasing, the breakdown of the gap
tB takes place soon after the leader inception. Hence, the
time for the propagation of the leader is shorter, and the
gap is bridged by the streamers even if the leader channel
is not long.
Thus, it can be clearly seen by comparing the results of
Figs. 2 and 5 that switching voltage waveforms DO NOT
“fairly approximate” the electric fields produced by the
descent of a downward leader, as claimed in [2-4]. Due to
the fact that the rate of increase of the lightning electric
fields changes from slow to fast, while the switching
electric field derivative changes from fast to slow (Fig. 4),
the development of leaders from air terminals under both
conditions is different. Moreover, the early streamer
principle does not apply for the case of lightning
waveforms in laboratory either. Figure 6 shows the
simulated streak image of a positive leader propagating in
the laboratory air gap under lightning-like electric fields,
considering the statistical streamer inception time. A
downward leader with a prospective return stroke current
is used in this case. Observe that despite of the fact that
the probability to produce an electron to initiate the
streamer from the terminal extends up to about 180 µs, the
time to breakdown tB is not affected by the streamer
inception time ti. In other words, there is not any change at
all in the time to breakdown in this case even if a streamer
is triggered earlier, contrary to the case of a leader
propagating under a switching voltage waveform. Thus, if
an early streamer is triggered from an air terminal under
lightning-like electric fields in laboratory (Fig. 6.a),
further bursts of aborted streamers and leaders are
produced, but there is not any significant change in the
stable leader inception time t1 compared with the case of a
late streamer (Fig. 6.b).
Fig. 6. Simulated streak image of the leader propagation in the
laboratory under the electric field produced by a downward
leader with prospective return stroke current of 5 kA for
different streamer inception times: a) the minimum possible
streamer inception time, b) the probabilistic maximum streamer
inception time
In the same way, the streamer emission principle does not
produce any improvement in the stable leader inception
time when the air terminal is exposed to the direct
influence of a downward moving leader. Figure 7 shows
our predictions of the development of an upward positive
leader connecting a downward moving negative leader
with prospective return stroke current of 10 kA. Similar
features of the leader initiation and propagation as the
ones discussed for lightning-like electric fields are
obtained. Also, there is not any change in the time tfj or in
the length of the upward leader at the moment of the
interception of the downward leader when a streamer is
initiated earlier. In this case, the connection of both
leaders takes place at the same instant regardless the time
of inception of the first streamer, even if the time
difference of the streamer inception times evaluated in
Fig. 7 is about 300 µs.
Therefore, the results presented in this section clearly
show that the early streamer principle DOES NOT work
under lightning conditions. Even though the early
streamer principle applies for leaders propagating in the
laboratory under switching waveforms, it does not
influence leaders propagating under the electric fields
produced by the descent of a downward moving leader.
Thus, the early emission of streamers from air terminals
DOES NOT lead to longer upward leaders at the moment
of the attachment of the downward leader and
consequently to longer lightning protection zones.
Fig. 7. Simulated streak image of the leader propagation under
the electric field produced by a downward leader with
prospective return stroke current of 10 kA for different streamer
inception times: a) the minimum possible streamer inception
time, b) the probabilistic maximum streamer inception time
 4 CONCLUSION
From the results of the simulations presented in this paper
it can be concluded that an early streamer triggered from
an air terminal tested under a switching impulse waveform
leads to the quicker initiation of the leader, and
consequently to a shorter time to breakdown. However,
this early emission principle does not apply for air
terminals under lightning conditions. Due to the fact that
the rate of increase of the lightning electric fields changes
from slow to fast, while the switching electric field
derivative changes from fast to slow, the development of
leaders from air terminals under both conditions is
different. Thus, the length of the upward connecting
leader at the moment of attachment of the downward
leader is not affected by the time of initiation of the first
streamer. This fact clearly shows that the early streamer
emission principle does not work for air terminals
exposed to the influence of downward moving leaders and
that the claimed enlarged lightning protection area of ESE
devices is physically not plausible. At best, the ESE
terminals perform similar to a conventional Franklin rod.
5 REFERENCES
[1] B. Cohen, “The Two Hundredth Anniversary of Benjamin
Franklin's Two Lightning Experiments and the Introduction
of the Lightning Rod”, Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society, Vol. 96, No. 3. 1952, pp. 331-366.
[2] G. Berger. “The early streamer emission lightning rod
conductor”, Proceedings 15th Int. Conf. Aerospace and
ground, ICOLSE, 1992, paper 38.
[3] G. Berger. “Leader inception field from a vertical rod
conductor –Efficiency of electrical triggering techniques-“.
Conference record of the 1996 IEEE International
Symposium on Electrical Insulation, Montreal, Canada,
1996, pp. 308-311.
[4] G. Berger. “Determination of the inception electric fields of
the lightning upward leader”, Proceedings of the Int. Symp.
High Voltage Engineering ISH, Yokoyama, Japan, 1993,
pp. 225-229.
[5] J. C. Willet, D. A. Davis, P. Laroche, “An experimental
study of positive leaders initiating rocket-triggered
lightning”, Atmos. Res. 51, 1999, pp. 189–219
[6] R. J. Van Brunt, T. L. Nelson, K. L. Stricklett, ”Early
streamer emission lightning protection systems: An
overview” IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine, Vol. 16,
No. 1, 2000, pp. 5-24.
[7] M. Becerra, V. Cooray, “Time dependent evaluation of the
lightning upward connecting leader inception”, J. Phys. D:
Appl. Phys., 39, 2006, pp. 4695–4702.
[8] M. Becerra, V. Cooray, “A self-consistent upward leader
propagation model”, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 39, 2006, pp.
3708–3715.
[9] P. Lalande, A. Bondiou, P. Laroche, A. Eybert, J. Berlandis,
B. Bador, A. Bonamy, M. Uman, V. Rakov, “Leader
properties determined with triggered lightning techniques”,
J. Geophys. Res. 103, 1998, pp. 14109–15
[10] Cooray V and Rakov V and Theethayi N, “The striking
distance revisited”, J. Electrostatics,
[11] Les Renardiéres Group, “Research on long air gap
discharges at Les Renardieres”, Electra 23, 1972, 53–157.
[12] Les Renardiéres Group, “Research on long air gap
discharges—1973 results”, Electra 35, 1974, 47–155.
[13] I. Gallimberti, “The mechanism of long spark formation”,
J. Physique Coll. 40 C7, Suppl. 7, 1972, pp. 193-250.
[14] L. D. Chalmers, J. C. Evans, W.H. Siew, “Considerations
for the assessment of early streamer emission lightning
protection”, IEE Proc. Sci. Meas. Technol, Vol. 146, No. 2,
1999, pp. 57-63.