Lightning Master Corporation has an extensive team and years of experience researching and developing lightning protection and static solutions.  The results of this expertise can be found in our products, the facilities we protect and the information detailed in these white papers.  If we can answer any questions about the technology and our findings, or for sales inquiries or interview requests, please contact us at [email protected].

Introduction

In today’s world, we use microprocessor-based equipment to help make our operations faster and more efficient. It is difficult to find a toaster, let alone a sophisticated control system, that is not microprocessor based. This technology has revolutionized the way the world does business, allowing us to handle information at an ever-accelerating rate.

Lightning Protection: A Three Pronged Attack

Based upon our experience, we have developed an integrated systems-approach to environment optimization which may be tailored to any type of facility or operation. The Lightning Master® approach consists of three steps:

Lightning Damage

There are four basic types of lightning damage: physical damage, secondary effect damage, electromagnetic effect damage, and damage caused by changes in ground reference potential.

Physical damage is caused by current flow and heat. A typical lightning strike in the United States conveys between 25,000 and 45,000 amps, with the higher amperage strikes occurring in the south, where the storms build higher. Lightning is high current flowing over a short period of time.

The Lightning Phenomenon

As an electrical storm builds, various mechanisms create a stratified charge within the storm cloud, with an electrical charge at the base of the cloud. Since we are mostly concerned with cloud-to-ground lightning, we are concerned primarily with the charge on the base on the storm, as that charge induces a “shadow” of opposite charge on the surface of the earth beneath it.

Lightning Strike Completion Mechanism

Various mechanisms create a stratified charge in a storm cloud. The charge on the base of the cloud induces an opposite charge on the surface of the earth beneath it. (Remember playing with magnets as a kid? Like charges repel and opposite charges attract.) As the storm cloud builds, it increases the potential difference between the cloud base charge and the ground charge, with the cloud base charge trying to pull the ground charge off the surface of the earth.