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LIGHTNING CURRENTS AND ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS IN LARGE

RADIO COMMUNICATION CENTERS WITH TOWERS


Renata MARKOWSKA
Bialystok Technical University

Abstract. The paper presents some results of numerical


simulations of lightning effects on the metallic structure
of large radio communication center consisted of a high
communication tower located in the vicinity of central
office building. The electromagnetic fields inside the
building, currents flows in the metallic structure, overvoltages and overcurrents induced in internal and external cabling have been analyzed. Different earthing of
particular blocks inside the building and the presence of
lightning protection system have been also considered.

The aim of this study was the evaluation of:


- the electromagnetic fields inside the central office
building;
- the current flowing into the building thorough the
antenna cable;
- the overvoltages and overcurrents in internal d.c.
power line and signal cabling.
These values have been evaluated for two different arrangements taking into account some protective means.
2. Analyzed configurations

1. Introduction
As it is well known from many field experiences, the
radio communication towers are one of the preferential
points for direct lightning strikes. These towers are always located in the vicinity of either the central telecommunication office building or container. In both
cases the direct lightning stroke to the tower is considered as possible and very serious source of damages of
the electronic equipment inside the building or container.
Another point is that continuous reduction of dimensions and signal levels in modern electronic equipment
makes the equipment more and more susceptible to
damage.
Lightning current flowing through the tower structure,
the existing grounding system and the conducted structure of the building or container creates a strong electromagnetic pulse as well as large voltage differences
between conductors. As a result of both the galvanic and
the electromagnetic coupling, the overvoltages and
overcurrents in external and internal cabling of the
equipment inside the building are generated.
This paper presents a study of the electromagnetic fields
inside the central telecommunication office building as
well as currents flows and overvoltages in the internal
and external cabling in case of direct lightning strike to
the telecommunication tower.
In these considerations it has been taken into account a
40 m high telecommunication tower located in the
vicinity (about 4 m) of the central office building as it is
shown on figures 1 and 2.

Figures 1 and 2 present the two analyzed configurations.


Basically, both configurations are the same structure of
the 40 m high communication tower located about 4 m
away from the central office building. The dimensions
of the building are: length 14.8m, width 10.8m and
height 12m.
Both configurations are composed with the following
common elements:
- the steel structure of the tower, which consists of 4
slanted legs, some horizontal elements linking these
legs every 4 m along with the tower height and the
air termination connected to the tower and its
grounding conductor;
- the simplified steel structure of the building;
- the simplified models of conducted parts of the
towers foundation block;
- the grounding system, consisted of two ring earth
electrodes around the building and the tower buried
at a depth of 80cm with some vertical rods and
horizontal earth electrodes;
- the tower grounding conductor linking the air termination with the grounding system;
- the simplified models of some chests containing the
electronic equipment: switching equipment on the
2-nd floor, transmission equipment on the 1-st floor,
main distribution frame (where the subscriber lines
are connected) and d.c. power plant on the ground
floor;
- some d.c. power conductors from d.c. power plant
to the transmission and switching equipment;

Current injection
point

Transmission
equipment

Switching
equipment

d.c.
power
plant
Distribution
frame

Fig. 1. Analyzed configuration case 1.

Fig. 2. Analyzed configuration case 2.

some signal conductors from the transmission to the


switching equipment;
- some signal conductors from the switching to the
distribution frame;
- the model of the antenna cables shield from the top
of the tower to the transmission equipment (this
shield is connected to the tower grounding conductor as well as to the grounding system at the entry to
the building).
The differences between configurations from fig.1 and 2
relate to the following:
- In case 1 (shown on fig. 1) the earthing configuration of the system blocks is a star configuration,
where all the system blocks are isolated and connected to the grounding system by separate conductors with a common single point [1]. In case 2
(shown on fig. 2) this star configuration was replaced by the lightning protection and earthing system that consists of ring conductors at each floor
along the inside perimeter of the building and the
network of vertical conductors and horizontal
grounding conductors forming the external lightning protection system. Both the internal and external lightning protection systems are connected together and to the buildings grounding system approximating a Faraday cage;
- In case 1 (shown on fig. 1) the antenna cables
shield is connected to the towers grounding conductor at two points: on the top of the tower and
bottom, at the exit from the tower. In case 2 (shown
on fig. 2) the antenna cables shield is connected to
the towers grounding conductor every 4 m along
with the conductor.
In both configurations the uniform soil model with a
100m resistivity, a relative permittivity of 1 and relative permeability of 1 has been assumed.
3. Lightning current
In all cases, the calculations have been performed with
one, double exponential waveform of the lightning current: 1/50 s and with amplitude of 100 kA.
The equation for the lightning current [2] used for the
computations is as follows:

I (t ) =

(e

e t ..(1)

where:
t
time
= 14103 s-1
reciprocal of time constant
reciprocal of time constant
= 6106 s-1
I = 100 kA
peak current
0.98
correcting factor
The current surge was injected into the top of the tower
in all cases.
4. Numerical modeling
The computer simulations have been performed by the
MultiFields [2], [3] software package, which is a part of
CDEGS package.

By means of Fourier Transform, the scalar potential and


electromagnetic field in the time domain are given by:

1
V (t ) =
2
E (t ) =
H (t ) =
where:

1
2
1
2

V ( )e

jt

....(2)

E ( )e

jt

(3)

H ( )e

jt

...(4)

V ( ) = Vo ( )I ( ) ..(5)
E ( ) = E o ( )I ( ) ..(6)
H ( ) = H o ( )I ( ) .....(7)
I ( ) =

I (t )e

jt

t .....(8)

I() is the frequency spectrum of the lightning current


surge and Vo(), Eo(), Ho() are the unmodulated scalar potential, electric field and magnetic field in frequency domain, respectively [5]. These unmodulated
quantities are computed by a unit current energization of
the conductor network.
The computation methodology is as follows:
1. Frequency decomposition of the time domain signal: Forward Fast Fourier Transform of the time
domain signal using FFTSES [2];
2. Computation of the frequency domain electromagnetic field response: compute the unmodulated frequency domain system response using HIFREQ [3];
3. Computation of the time domain electromagnetic
field response: Inverse Fast Fourier Transform using FFTSES [2].
The frequency domain computations are assumed to be
a simple harmonic. More complicated shapes can be expressed as a superposition of such simple harmonics.
For the purpose of the computation, each conductor in
the network is partitioned in small segments (large
enough to meet the thin wire approximation). Each such
segment is represented by an electric dipole located at
its center. The electromagnetic field at an observation
point is obtained as the sum of the contributions from all
of the dipoles.
The field of the dipole is expressed as the sum of the
source term, the image term and the Sommerfeld integral. The Sommerfeld integrals have been computed by
the Double-Integration method i.e. numerically, without
any approximation [3].
Partitioning of conductors in small segments has been
done so that the current is assumed to vary linearly
along with the segment for all analyzed frequencies.
For the current determination and to impose the boundary conditions at the conductors surface, the twopotential (scalar and vector) moment method is used.
For the considered current surge shape, all computations
have been made in frequency range from 0 to 20 MHz.

5. Simulation results
5.1. Electromagnetic fields inside the building
Fig. 3 presents the total electric and magnetic fields in
the middle of the building on the 2-nd floor (about 9.4m
above ground) for the two analyzed configurations:
from fig. 1 and fig. 2 (case 1 and case 2 respectively).
a) case 1

b) case 2

Table 1. Calculated results of the peak values of electromagnetic fields in various points inside the building.
Point inside the building
Ground floor (2m above
ground), in the middle of
the building

Case 1

Case 2

210 kV/m
960 A/m

72.8 kV/m
616 A/m

1-st floor (5m above


ground), in the middle of
the building

92 kV/m
828 A/m

70 kV/m
736 A/m

2-nd floor (9.4m above


ground), in the middle of
the building

123 kV/m
980 A/m

72.8 kV/m
800 A/m

172 kV/m
1680 A/m

116 kV/m
1720 A/m

2-nd floor (9.4m above


ground), about 1m away
from the corner of the
building

5.2. Currents flowing into the building through antenna cable


The aim of the next step of the analysis was to determine the currents flowing into the building through the
antennas cable, precisely through the shield of the cable,
and whether they can be reduced or not by equipotential
bonding of the shield and the tower structure. The two
configurations from figures 1 and 2 with 2-point and
multipoint bonding respectively have been analyzed.
a) case 1

b) case 2

Fig. 3. Electromagnetic fields on the 2-nd floor (9,4 m above


ground) in the middle of the building for the analyzed
configurations: a) from fig. 1; b) from fig. 2.

The shape of the time domain magnetic field is similar


to the shape of the lightning current 1/50 s. The observed oscillations are caused by the reflection of the
main current wave in the tower.
The time domain electric field has much faster front
time and contains much more higher harmonics.
Tab. 1 presents some results of electromagnetic fields
computations in various points inside the building.
The table shows that the electromagnetic fields inside
the building can arise to quite high levels, especially the
magnetic field.
It is clear also that in the case 2 the fields levels are
lower, but the reduction is not significant. About 2-9 dB
and 1-4 dB for the electric and magnetic field respectively in comparison with case 1. In the vicinity of the
buildings corner the magnetic field in case 2 is even a
little higher. This is due to close proximity of the buildings lightning protection conductors.

Fig. 4. Currents in the antenna cables shield inside the building for the two analyzed configurations: a) from fig. 1;
b) from fig. 2.

Fig. 4 presents the currents flowing into the building


through antenna cable for the two analyzed configurations. The diagrams show the currents in the cables
shield inside, just after entering the building.
The current in case 2 is almost two times lower than that
in case 1. However, this is not the result of bonding the
cables shield to the tower grounding conductor, because the current in the cables shield outside, just before entering the building in case 2 was even larger

(23.6 kA) than that in case 1 (22.5 kA). So the reduction


of the current in antenna cables shield inside the building is caused by the earthing and lightning protection
system of the building (better equalization of potentials
and currents draining off).

case 2). Fig. 5 represents circuit with the return conductor connected to ground at both ends and fig. 6 circuit
with the return conductor connected to ground at one
end only (at transmission equipment).
a) case 1

b) case 2

5.3 Overvoltages and overcurrents in internal d.c.


power line and signal cabling
For determining overvoltages and overcurrents induced
in d.c. power and signal cabling inside the building, two
circuit configurations have been assumed:
- configuration 1 return conductor connected to
ground at both ends;
- configuration 2 return conductor connected to
ground at one end only (at the proper signal source).
The proper signal sources have been assumed to be the
sources with zero internal impedance.
The open circuit voltages and short circuit currents with
the following conductors have been computed:
- the d.c. power conductors at the interfaces of the
transmission and switching equipment;
- the signal conductors from transmission to switching equipment at the interfaces of the switching
equipment;
- the signal conductors from the switching equipment
to the distribution frame at the interfaces of the distribution frame.
The computed short circuit currents in the d.c power cabling at the interfaces of the transmission and switching
equipment for circuit configuration 1 are summarized in
tab. 2 for both analyzed arrangements (figures 1 and 2).
The values shown in the table are the amplitudes of the
main impulse caused by the applied current surge i.e.
that of the shape similar to the surge current. The
maximal values are even larger due to the fast oscillations appearing at the front of the main impulse that are
caused by the reflections.
The currents at the interfaces of the transmission
equipment have the negative values because of the current flowing through the antenna cable. Some part of
this current is drained off to the grounding system
through the d.c. power conductors. In case 2 this current
has much shorter path to the grounding system, so the
current flowing through the d.c. power conductors is
much less.

Fig. 5. Computed short circuit currents in signal cabling at the


switching equipment interfaces, where the return conductor is connected to ground at both ends.
a) case 1

b) case 2

Table 2. Short circuit currents in the d.c. power conductors at


the interfaces of the transmission and switching
equipment for the analyzed system configurations.
Analyzed interface
Transmission equipment
Switching equipment

Case 1
[A]
-780
275

Case 2
[A]
-60
560

The higher current at the switching equipment interface


in case 2 was caused probably by the large voltage difference between grounding conductors of the power
plant and switching equipment. In case 1 they were
grounded at one single point.
Figures 5 and 6 present the computed short circuit currents in signal cabling at the switching equipment interfaces for different system configurations (case 1 and

Fig. 6. Computed short circuit currents in signal cabling at the


switching equipment interfaces, where the return conductor is connected to ground at one end only.

Tab. 3 summarizes the computed short circuit currents


in signal cabling for both system configurations (case 1
and case 2) and at both the switching equipment and the
distribution frame interfaces. The first values in the table are the maximal values including the fast oscillations at the front of the main current surge, and the second ones are the amplitudes of this main current surge
i.e. that arises directly from the surge current.

Table 3. The computed short circuit currents in signal cabling


for both system configurations at the switching
equipment and the distribution frame interfaces.
Description
Short circuit current at
switching equipment port,
return conductor grounded
at both ends
Short circuit current at
switching equipment port,
return conductor grounded
at one end
Short circuit current at distribution frame port, return
conductor grounded at both
ends
Short circuit current at distribution frame port, return
conductor grounded at one
end

Case 1

Case 2

610 A
376 A

472 A
375 A

45 A
11.5 A

39 A
10.6 A

504 A
304 A

310 A
224 A

26.5 A
4.8 A

6. Conclusions

30.2 A
2.2 A

The comparison between values shown in the table for


different system configurations (case 1 and case 2) show
that there is no evident benefits due to the shielding effectiveness of the earthing and lightning protection system applied in the configuration from fig. 2 (case 2). In
comparison with the configuration from fig. 1 (case 1)
the reduction oscillates between 0 and 7 dB.
Further, it is clear that the circuit configuration in which
the return conductor is grounded at one end only, provides a very strong reduction of short circuit currents
flowing into the equipment through the signal lines. The
benefits are from 20 to 40 dB.
a) case 1

b) case 2

100

80

80

60

60

40

40
20
kV 20

kV
0

-20

-20

-40

-40
-60

0.5

1.5

2
s

2.5

3.5

-60

0.5

1.5

2
s

2.5

3.5

Fig. 7. Computed open circuit voltages in signal cabling at the


switching equipment interfaces, where the return conductor is grounded at both ends.
a) case 1

10

20

7. References

6
4

10

kV 0

-2

-5

-4

-10

-6

-15

-8

-20

-10

0.5

The computations of the currents flows in the external


and internal cabling of the building associated with the
radio communication tower (especially the currents
flowing through the shields and return conductors) show
that potential differences between grounded conductors
are the main sources of overvoltages and overcurrents.
Thus, voltages and currents in circuits where the return
conductor is grounded at both ends are several times
(from a few to even a hundred times) greater than that
with the return conductors grounded at one end only.
The amplitudes of both the short circuit currents and
open circuit voltages in power line and signal cabling at
the equipment interfaces may arise to very high levels.
Also the shielding effectiveness of the buildings
earthing and lightning protection system do not provide
evident benefits. It is not enough to protect the equipment even for the circuit configuration with the return
conductor grounded at one end. So, some further precautions have to be undertaken and some protective
means should be applied to prevent the electronic
equipment inside the buildings from damage.
Basically, better equalization of potentials, which are
the main sources of overvoltages and overcurrents in
cabling, is needed, if possible. Particularly, the better
draining off the current flowing through the antenna cables shield at the entry to the building is very important
for potentials equalization on the area occupied by the
building.
Also, the cables rerouting should be considered. And
finally, the shielding of cables and lightning protection
devices should be applied.

b) case 2

25

15

kV

configurations (case 1 and case 2) are presented on figures 7 and 8. Fig. 7 represents circuit configuration with
the return conductor connected to ground at both ends
and fig. 8 configuration in which the return conductor is
grounded at one end only (at transmission equipment).
In this case, the shielding effectiveness of the earthing
and lightning protection system from fig. 3 (case 2) in
comparison with the configuration from fig. 2 (case 1) is
about 2.5 8 dB.
The reduction of overvoltages in circuit with the return
conductor grounded at one end in comparison with circuit with the return conductor grounded at both ends is
from 12 to 17 dB.

1.5

2
s

2.5

3.5

0.5

1.5

2
s

2.5

3.5

Fig. 8. Computed open circuit voltages in signal cabling at the


switching equipment interfaces, where the return conductor is grounded at one end only.

The computations of open circuit voltages in signal cabling at the equipment ports show a similar dependence.
The computed open circuit voltages in signal conductors
at the switching equipment ports for the two system

1. CCITT Recommendation K 27, Bonding configuration and earthing inside a telecommunication building, ITU 1992.
2. FFTSES Users Manual: Fast Fourier Transform
Safe Engineering Services & Technologies Ltd.,
Montreal Canada
3. HIFREQ Users Manual: Frequency Domain
Analysis of Buried Conductor Networks Safe Engineering Services & Technologies Ltd., Montreal
Canada
4. How to Engineering guide: Lightning transient
study of a communication tower Safe Engineering
Services & Technologies Ltd., Montreal Canada

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