Some Methods You Must Know in Lightning Protection

Lightning is a natural discharge phenomenon. Lightning strikes are natural disasters that not only cause damage to equipment and housing facilities, but also may cause fires and may even harm people. It is undeniable that such things happen frequently, especially in the rainy season. Therefore, it is important to raise the awareness of lightning protection. Here are some lightning protection measures.

Protection of Self-safety 

1. In the gap of about one minute between two lightning strikes, you should hide as much as possible in a place that can be protected. If you do not have the above conditions, you should kneel down immediately, bend forward, and hold your knees with your hands.

2. In the field, you can also use taller trees to protect against thunder, but remember to be at least two meters away from the tree. And it is not advisable to stay under isolated chimneys, alongside tall metal objects or under electric poles. In addition, it is not safe to stand under the eaves. It is better to enter the building immediately.

3. If you have a metal umbrella or other things in the thunderstorm, be sure to throw away or let these objects fall below the human body. There are also some so-called insulators, such as hoes, which are not insulated during thunderstorms.

4. When the thunderstorm occurs, if you want to turn on indoor lights, you should avoid standing under the lamp-head line. 

5. It is not advisable to use a shower when the thunderstorm occurs. Because the water pipe is connected to the lightning protection grounding, the lightning current can cause death and injury through the water flow.

Protection of Household Appliances

1. The use of household appliances should be avoided as far as possible in thunderstorm weather and the power plugs and signal plugs of electrical appliances should be unplugged.

2. When conditions permit, the power arrester shall be installed at the place where the power supply enters the house, and the signal arrester shall be installed at the entrance of cable TV antenna, telephone, fax machine, computer MODEN modem and satellite TV electric cable interface. What's more, good grounding wires, earth cables and grounding grids should be installed at the same time.

3. Listen to the weather forecast every day. When you find that there is a thunderstorm on the day, you should unplug the power plug and signal plug of the household appliance before going to work, and don't forget to close the door and window when you go out to prevent the invasion of ball-rolling thunder.

Protection of Buildings

1. It is advisable to use the lighting protection devices installed on buildings, such as the lightning arrester, the lightning rod and so on. Lightning arrester net should be laid along roof corner, roof ridge, eaves and cornices which are susceptible to lightning, and the whole roof should be composed of grids not more than 10m *10m or 12m *8m (grid density is determined by building type). All lightning rods shall be connected with each other by lightning belts.

2. The number of down conductors should not be less than two, and should be evenly or symmetrically arranged around the building. The spacing should not be greater than 18m (the spacing of the down conductors is determined by the type of building). When only the steel column or column steel bar around the building is used as the down conductor, the lower line can be set according to the span, but the average spacing of the down line should not be greater than 18m.

3. The impact grounding resistance of each down conductor should not exceed 10Ω. The anti-direct lightning grounding system should share the same earthing device with grounding of lightning induction, electrical equipment, information system and other earthing electrodes, and should be connected with buried metal pipelines. When it is not shared, the distance between the two grounding devices should meet the requirements of lightning protection design specifications of buildings and not less than 3m. In the case where the common grounding device is connected to the buried metal pipe, the grounding device should be laid around the building as a ring-shaped grounding body.

When the thunderstorm season comes, the lighting-protection system can provide protection for circuit and electrical equipment and prevent fires. Taking good measures can prevent thunder to ensure personal safety.