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Calculation of efficiency of rod and catenary wire lightning rods

March 20, 2017

The ZANDZ.com Grounding and Lightning Protection project is a service for calculation of lightning strike probability to the facility protected by lightning rods. The service allows verifying the lightning protection system's reliability and performing the most rational and correct design for the lightning protection via the provision of:

  • less cost of design and installation work, reduction in unnecessary stock and the use of smaller lightning rods which are cheaper for installation;
  • less lightning strikes to the system by reducing the secondary negative effects, which is especially important for the facilities with multiple electronic devices (the number of lightning strikes is reduced along with the lightning rod's height decrease).

 

The service functions to calculate the efficiency of the designed lightning protection as clear parameters::

  • the probability of the lightning strike into the system's facility (protection system reliability is 1 minus probability);
  • the number of lightning strikes into the system per year;
  • the number of lightning strikes that miss the protection per year.

 

With this detailed information, the designer may compare the customer's requirements and regulatory documents with the obtained reliability and take measures to change the lightning protection design.

Computing core of the calculation service is developed by Krzhizhanovsky Energy Institute LLC (ENIN LLC) in the laboratory for mathematical modelling of geophysical processes under the guidance of E. M. Bazelyan who was actively involved in the development of regulatory documents RD 34.21.122-87 and SO 153-34.21.122-2003.

This service is currently under testing. You can send feedback on appearance, user friendliness, or errors to info@zandz.com. We thank you in advance!


Account interface. Drawing editor.

 

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SO 153-34.21.122-2003 states the following on the use of this software: "3.3.1. ... In general, the lightning arresters should be chosen using the respective software capable of calculating the protection zones or the probability of the lightning strike into the facility (or a group of facilities) of any configuration, with the random position of almost any lightning arrester..."

Moreover, Technical Circular No. 25/2009 of ROSELECTROMONTAZH "ON THE USE OF SPECIAL SOFTWARE TO CALCULATE THE EFFICIENCY OF THE PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF LIGHTNING ARRESTERS" states the following on its use:

"... When designing the external lightning protection system for the facilities, the following points should be used as a guidance:... 2. To provide optimal generation of protection zones for complex buildings and structures having uneven roofs, protruding spiers, towers, variable geometry, buildings over 150 m high, complexes of buildings and other complex facilities, the following software products should be used, e.g. "Software for calculation of efficiency of rod and wire lightning arresters using the statistical method developed by ENIN LLC. ..."

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