IX International Symposium on Lightning Protection

26th-30th November 2007 Foz do Iguau, Brazil

ELECTROMAGNETICALLY EVALUATED DISTRIBUTIONS OF CURRENT AND MAGNETIC FIELD IN BUILDING HIT BY LIGHTNING
Masaru Ishii
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo m.ishii@ieee.org 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan
Abstract - IEC 61024-1 recommends equi-potential bonding for the grounding system of a building. Electrical wirings and metal communication lines are recommended to be connected to the steel frame on each floor of the building through surge protective devices (SPD). When the SPD is activated by overvoltages generated by lightning which directly hits the building, fraction of lightning current will flow into the electrical wirings or metal communication lines through the activated SPD. Overvoltages are generated not only by the shunted lightning current, but also by magnetic fields induced by the lightning current which flows into bonded conductors. Reliable evaluation of the distribution of impulse current and magnetic fields in a building directly hit by lighting is indispensable for rational installation of SPD. Two types of models, namely circuit models and electromagnetic models, have been employed to cope with this subject so far. Electromagnetic models automatically incorporate electromagnetic coupling among conductors, however, they have mainly investigated phenomena within few microseconds. It is demonstrated that application of the method of moments, one of the representative methods of numerical electromagnetic analysis, to this subject is useful also in relatively a long time range.

1 INTRODUCTION Overvoltages are generated in the building directly hit by lightning, not only by the shunted lightning current but also by electromagnetic fields induced by the lightning current which flows into bonded conductors. IEC 61024-1 recommends equi-potential bonding for the grounding system of a building so that dangerous voltage may not stress electrical apparatuses [1]. To achieve equi-potential bonding, all conductors need to be connected directly or through surge protective devices (SPD). When the SPD is activated by overvoltages generated by lightning which directly hits the building, fraction of lightning current will flow into the electrical wirings through the activated SPD. The level of disturbance on electronic equipments is related to the strength of time derivative of the induced magnetic field, which is dependent on the position inside of the building. Induction current is generated on a loop conductor penetrated by the magnetic field. It is necessary to know the distribution of lightning current inside of a building to evaluate the SPD currents and disturbance associated with the induced magnetic fields. The methods employed to calculate lightning current distribution inside of a building so far can be grouped into two. One group employs circuit models [2][3][4], and the other employs electromagnetic models [5][6]. Circuit models represent a conductor by lumped or distributed impedance, and current distribution is solved based on the circuit theory. Electromagnetic models are built based on the given geometry and electrical parameters, such as the resistance per unit length, of the conductors of the building. Lightning channel also needs to be modeled as the excitation source. The distribution of lightning current is calculated by solving Maxwell's equations numerically under the given boundary condition. Once the distribution of current is determined, it is easy for the electromagnetic model to calculate the spatial distribution of induced magnetic field inside of the building. Electromagnetic models are more rigorous in handling electromagnetic couplings among the conductors, although numerical analysis on electromagnetic models often suffers from instability or too much computation time. Due to this feature, electromagnetic models have mainly been employed to investigate phenomena within few microseconds. In designing the energy ratings of SPD to be installed in a building, however, it is necessary to know how much fraction of lightning current flows into the wirings through SPD in a longer time range. In this paper, examples of application of numerical electromagnetic analysis to the evaluation of the distributions of induced magnetic fields in a short time range [7], and of lightning currents in a relatively long time range [8] are demonstrated.

2 METHOD OF ANALYSIS Representative methods for numerical electromagnetic analysis applied to lightning surge problems so far have been the method of moments (MoM) and the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method [9]. The latter divides the whole analysis space into cells, and performs the calculation step by step in the time domain. In applying it to a model in an open space, as in the case of the model of a building hit by lightning, careful setting of the boundaries at the limits of the analysis space is indispensable, so that reflections from the limits do not influence the calculated results. The maximum time step is restricted by the size of the cells, therefore, it is hard to compute for more than few microseconds in a typical lightning surge problem, due to the increase of computation time. Wires thinner than the size of a cell, which usually is a fundamental element in a lightning surge problem, need to be handled with special care [10]. The advantages of the FDTD method are that it is stable within the limit of the time step, and skills are not much required to produce a model. MoM [11] divides the boundaries into segments, and calculates currents on each segment so that the boundary conditions are fulfilled. Both the time-domain code and the frequency-domain code are available, and a frequencydomain code called Numerical Electromagnetics Code (NEC) is widely used in the antenna community. The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory developed it and its second version, NEC-2, is publicly released. It can be applied to timedomain analysis, combined with Fourier transform, and the accuracy of the computed result has been verified through comparison with experiments [12]. This method is advantageous in handling an open space and thin wires, whereas some skills are necessary in modeling the physical condition, and it is sometimes unstable even when the parameters involved are within the recommended condition. Presently, NEC-4 [13] is available, which is more stable and has expanded ability in handling thicker conductors and buried conductors. In this paper, results computed with the help of NEC-4 are demonstrated. The computation by NEC is performed in the frequency domain, and Fourier and inverse Fourier transforms are applied to obtain results in the time domain. Fig. 1 shows the employed model of a 5-story building, including electrical wirings. The width and the depth of the building are 20 m each and the height is 5 m per floor. A shed of 10 m x 10 m in width and in depth is built on the roof. Lightning strikes the lightning rod of 5 m attached on the corner of the shed. Eight vertical columns are connected to the ground, which is replaced by a perfectly conducting plane. The grounding resistance of each column is zero. In an actual building, the feet of the columns are connected to buried steel frames; therefore, the imbalance of the grounding resistance at each foot of the column will hardly affect the distribution of current.

Fig.1 - Model of building including electrical wirings.

Fig. 2 - Example of calculated current waveforms into wirings in the five-story building of Fig. 1. Diameters of beams and of columns are 50 cm and those of wirings are 1cm.

Fig. 3 - Fraction of lightning current into the wiring on the top floor of the five-story building. Diameters of beams and of columns are 50 cm and those of wirings are 1cm.

Lead-in cables or communication lines from the outside are ignored because their impedances are high. The down conductor is substituted by a vertical steel column. Horizontal length of the electrical wiring on each floor is 20 m. SPD connected between the down conductor and the electrical wirings are not shown in Fig. 1 because they turn on when lightning current flows into the down conductor. Resistance of the steel frames, of the lightning rod and of the electrical wirings are set to zero, because its contribution to the current distribution is much smaller than that of self inductance in the frequency range of concern. The diameters of the lightning channel and of the electrical wirings are 1 cm each. For the lightning channel, an electromagnetic model [14] is employed, which places a voltage source at the bottom of the channel to inject lightning current. Fig. 2 shows an example of calculated waveforms of current, for the period of 4 s, into the wirings in the five-story building of Fig. 1. The currents from the steel frame into the wirings are defined as positive. The diameter of the beams and columns of the steel frame is 50 cm. Fig. 3 shows the example of the fraction of the lightning current in the frequency domain into the wiring on the top floor of the building of Fig. 1. A fraction of lightning current is defined as the ratio of current at each part of the building to that at the lightning attachment point. As the frequency goes lower, the curve approaches to a limiting value, however, it begins to depart from the limiting value at about 0.3 MHz. This frequency indicates the lower limit of the frequency NEC-4 can handle for the structure of Fig. 1.

A test current waveform of 10/350 s, defined by IEC 61312-1 representing lightning first return strokes [14], is beyond the lower frequency limit calculable by NEC-4, however, the energy rating of SPD is dominated by the lightning current with long duration. The almost constant value of the fraction around 0.3 MHz indicates that the inductance of the system is almost independent of the frequency below about 0.3 MHz, while the resistance of the system becomes not negligible only below tens of Hertz. Therefore, the fraction of current having long duration at each part of the building can be estimated from its limiting value in the frequency domain. The limiting value is obtained by extrapolating the curves showing the dependence of the fraction of current on the frequency in the low frequency region, as shown in Fig. 3. In evaluating the distribution of induced magnetic field, the test-current waveform representing subsequent lightning return-stroke current defined in IEC 61312-1 [15], having the 10-90% virtual front time of 0.25 s, is employed. Currents in the conductors and the time derivative of the magnetic field, dH/dt, are calculated with the help of NEC-4. In this calculation, the electrical wirings shown in Fig. 1 are removed to obtain the general picture more clearly. 3 DISTRIBUTION OF LIGHTNING CURRENT WITH LONG DURATION [8] For the geometry of Fig. 1, the fraction of the lightning current flows into the wiring on the top floor is the largest among the floors. Fig. 4 shows distribution of lightning current with long duration in the five-story building, where the numbers in the figure represent the fraction of the lightning current in percents at each part. The diameter of the elements of the steel frame is 50 cm. At an upper part of the building, more lightning current flows in the down conductor side, and it is evened in the lower part. In the time-domain analysis by the FDTD method, it is hard to calculate response beyond several microseconds due to the increase in the computation time. Table 1 summarizes the calculated fractions of the lightning current with long duration into the wirings of buildings of various heights, respectively. The fractions of the lightning current flow into the wirings on the top floor is the largest irrespective of the height of the building, and it flows out to the grounding system at lower floors, where the fraction at the bottom floor is the largest. The fractions on the top and the bottom floors are almost unchanged when a building has more than five stories. The fractions of the lightning current into the wirings on the middle floors are small. This type of a result can be utilized in determining the energy rating of SPD to be installed.

Fig. 4 - Distribution of lightning current of long duration in the building of Fig. 1.

Table 1: Fractions of lightning current flow into wirings of buildings of various heights. 8 stories 2.5% 0.7% 0.1% -0.2% -0.3% -0.5% -0.8% -1.5% 7 stories 2.5% 0.6% -0.0% -0.3% -0.5% -0.8% -1.5% Number of floors 6 stories 5 stories 4 stories 3 stories 2 stories

8th floor 7th floor 6th floor 5th floor 4th floor 3rd floor 2nd floor 1st floor

2.4% 0.6% -0.1% -0.5% -0.8% -1.6%

2.3% 0.4% -0.3% -0.8% -1.7%

2.1% 0.2% -0.7% -1.7%

1.8% -0.2% -1.7%

1.3% -1.3%

Fig. 5 Dependence of the fractions of lightning current flows out from the wiring of the bottom floor on the diameter of columns of the steel frame of a five-story building. The diameter of wirings is 1cm.

Fig. 5 shows the variation of the fractions of the lightning current flows out from the wirings on the bottom floor, dependent on the diameter of the elements of the steel frame of a five-story building. The diameter of the electrical wirings is 1 cm. The three lines in the figure correspond to different connections of the wirings, and the wiring shown in Fig. 1 is named system 1. Difference among the lines is small and is unimportant in the discussion here. The dependence of the fractions on the diameter of the steel column is strong when the column is thinner than about 20 cm. This kind of analysis is not easy by the FDTD method, which has restriction in handling thin wires. 4 DISTRIBUTION OF MAGNETIC FIELD BY SUBSEQUENT LIGHTNING STROKE The induced voltage on a square open loop is proportional to the time derivative of penetrating magnetic field, and that on a loop having a section of 1 m x 1 m by dH/dt of 2000 A/m/s is 2.5 kV. This type of induced voltage threats electronic equipments. To evaluate the severity of induced voltages of this type, an impulse current representing a subsequent lightning stroke having the amplitude of 50 kA and the 10-90% virtual front time of 0.25 s is injected into the building shown in Fig. 1. The distribution of the peak of dH/dt values in the building is investigated with the help of NEC-4. In Fig. 6, the peaks of the time derivatives of the currents at each part of the buildings in percents relative to that of the channel-base current, which will be measured if the same lightning channel attaches directly to the ground, are also shown. Different from Fig. 4, the value at the lightning attachment point in Fig. 6 is not 100%. This is due to the finite impedance of the lightning channel, which results in reduction of the peak of a steep-front lightning current injected into a tall structure [16]. The peak of a slow-front lightning current, such as the case of Fig. 4, is hardly influenced by the structure on the ground to which the lightning channel attaches. Because the numbers in Fig. 6 are peaks of di/dt, the times for peaks of di/dt may not be the same. Therefore, the sum of the numbers into a node is not necessarily zero and the sum of the numbers into the ground is more than 100%.

Fig.6 Calculated peak of the time derivative of current at each part in the building of Fig. 1, at the injection of subsequent lightning current having the virtual front time of 0.25 s [15]. Wirings in the building are omitted. The values are in percents relative to that of channel-base current, which will be measured if the same lightning channel attaches directly to ground [16].

(a) Top (fifth) floor, z=21m.

(b) Middle (third) floor, z=11m.

Fig. 7 - Spatial distribution of peak absolute values of induced dH/dt inside of building of Fig.6 for lightning current of 50 kA/0.25 s.

Fig. 7 shows the calculated spatial distributions of the peak absolute values of the dH/dt on horizontal planes 1 m above the floors. The closer to the ceiling, the more intense the induced dH/dt. Distributions of dH/dt on the lower floors are similar to that of Fig. 7 (b). On the top floor, dH/dt values are higher than 2000 A/m/s in the most area, however, they are much less on the lower floors.

Fig. 8 - Model of a building, the top of which is covered with a metal mesh. Calculated peak of time derivative of current at each part in the building at the injection of subsequent lightning current having the virtual front time of 0.25 s [15] is also shown The values are in percents relative to that of channel-base current, which will be measured if the same lightning channel attaches directly to ground [16].

Fig. 9 - Spatial distribution of peak absolute values of induced dH/dt on the fifth floor of building of Fig. 8 for lightning current of 50 kA/0.25 s.

By analyzing the contribution of current on each element of the steel frame to the dH/dt on the top floor of the building of Fig. 1, the principal causes of the generation of intense magnetic field were clarified [7]. They are the imbalance of the currents in the vertical columns of the upper part of the buiding, and the currents on the ceiling of the top floor. Based on this finding, a model of a building shown in Fig. 8, the top of which is covered with a mesh to reduce the large dH/dt on the top floor, is produced. The mesh size is 2 m and the diameter of the conductor of the mesh is 2 cm.

The same lightning current as the case of Fig. 6 is injected into the lightning rod of Fig. 8, and Fig. 9 shows the calculated spatial distributions of the peak absolute values of the dH/dt on the top floor of the building. The induced dH/dt are remarkably reduced compared with Fig. 7 (a) by covering the top with the mesh. The mesh makes the distribution of lightning currents in the columns of the top floor more even. It also reduces the contribution of the currents in it to the dH/dt on the top floor by the radially symmetrical current flow. The negligibly small currents in the beams of the lower floors mean that the horizontal conductors at lower parts of a building covering its sides will hardly contribute to reduce the dH/dt inside of a building directly hit by lightning.. 5 CONCLUSION Examples of application of numerical electromagnetic analysis to the investigation on LEMP in a building directly hit by lightning are demonstrated. The employed method directly solves Maxwells equations under given boundary conditions, therefore, if the calculation is correctly performed, the result is more precise than the analysis employing circuit theory, which has to postulate TEM mode of electromagnetic fields, and has to approximate complex electromagnetic interaction among conductors. The former restriction in the calculation by circuit theory is fatal in analyzing electromagnetic fields in non-TEM mode e.g. in such an occasion as the calculation of maximum dH/dt in a 30-m building stressed by lightning current having 0.25 s wave front. The latter restriction may be tolerable, since it only affects the accuracy of the result. Nevertheless, if a similar result can be obtained by simply giving the geometrical boundary conditions, this alternative is quite attractive. The calculation of the distribution of lightning current with long duration in a directly hit building in this paper is an example of such a case. Disadvantages in the numerical electromagnetic analysis are also discussed in the text. Other than those, a major disadvantage is that the correctness of the calculated results is not guaranteed. Therefore, careful examination of the computed results, by comparing them with experimental results [12] or by comparing the computed results in a simple geometry with analytical solution, is quite an important procedure. The employment of numerical electromagnetic analysis is worth despite such rather difficult verification processes, since it now is going to be substituted for difficult experiments, such as the measurement of lightning current distributions in buildings. 6 REFERENCES
[1] IEC 61024-1, Protection structures against lightning - Part 1: General principles, 1990. [2] A. Sowa, Surge current distribution in building during a direct lightning stroke, Proc. of 1991 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Cherry Hill, NJ, USA, pp. 103105, 1991. [3] A. Orlandi, G. B. Lo Piparo, and C. Mazzetti, Analytical expression for current share in lightning protection system, European Transactions on Electrical Power Engineering, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 107114, 1995. [4] S. Cristina, M. DAmore, and A. Orlandi, Lightning stroke to a structure protection system Part I : Current distribution analysis, Proc. 1989 International. Symposium on High Voltage Engineering, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 10.04, 1989. [5] S. Cristina and A. Orlandi, EMC effect of the lightning protection system: shielding properties the roof grid, Proc. 1991 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Cherry Hill, NJ, USA, pp.78-83, 1991. [6] S. Cristina and A. Orlandi, Lightning channels influence on currents and electromagnetic fields in a building struck by lightning, Proc. of 1990 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Washington, D. C., USA, pp. 338 342, 1990. [7] S. Miyazaki and M. Ishii, Induced magnetic field inside of directly stricken building by lightning, Proc. 28th Int. Conf. on Lightning Protection, pp. 704-709, Kanazawa, Sept. 2006. [8] S. Miyazaki and M. Ishii, Numerical electromagnetic analysis on lightning current distribution inside of directly stricken building, Proc. 28th Int. Conf. on Lightning Protection, pp. 1064-1069, Kanazawa, Sept. 2006. [9] Y. Baba and V. A. Rakov, Electromagnetic models of the lightning return stroke, J. Geophys. Res., vol. 112, D04102, doi:10.1029/2006JD007222, 2007. [10] T. Noda and S. Yokoyama, Thin wire representation in finite difference time domain surge simulation, IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 840-847, 2002. [11] R. F. Harrington, Field Computation by Moment Methods. New York: Macmillan Company, 1968. [12] M. Ishii and Y. Baba, Numerical electromagnetic field analysis of tower surge response, IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 483-488, 1997. [13] G. J. Burke, Numerical electromagnetics code (NEC-4) - method of moments, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, YCRL-MA-109338 PT. II, 1992. [14] Y. Baba and M. Ishii, Numerical electromagnetic field analysis of lightning current in tall structure, IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 324-328, 2001. [15] IEC 61312-1, Protection against lightning electromagnetic impulse. Part 1: General principles, 1995. [16] S. Miyazaki and M. Ishii, Influence of elevated stricken object on lightning return-stroke current and associated fields, Proc. 2004 Int. Conf. on Lightning Protection, vol. 1, pp. 122125, Avignon, 2004.