Lightning Protection

Lightning is an electric current. Within a thunder cloud, many small bits of ice rub each other as they move around in the air. All of those collisions create an electric charge.  After a while, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges. The positive charges or protons form at the top of the cloud and the negative charges or electrons form at the bottom of the cloud.  Since opposites attract, that causes a positive charge to build up in other clouds or on the ground beneath the cloud. The grounds electrical charge focuses around anything that sticks up, such as mountains, people, buildings or single trees. The charge coming up from these points eventually connects with a charge reaching down from the clouds and – zap -lightning strikes!

And When planning and executing a lightning protection system, it is necessary to observe all relevant national standards (SANS62305/IEC62305) and take account of any special circumstances or applications and the safety stipulations in the relevant country-specific supplements.

A lightning and surge protection system consists of several systems, each tailored to each of the others. At its most basic, a lightning and surge protection system consists of one internal and one external lightning protection system.

These, in turn, can be categorised as follows:

• Air-termination devices
• Down-conductors
• Earthing systems
• Area shielding
• Separation distance
• Lightning protection equipotential bonding system

These systems must be carefully selected for the application at hand and used in a coordinated way. Installation of the systems takes place according to various application and product standards. The supplements to the international IEC guidelines and harmonised European versions of the various country-specific translations often contain additional informative information specific to the country in question.

Product standards

To ensure that the components can withstand the loads to which they are likely to be exposed within the application, they must be checked against the respective product standard for external and internal lightning protection.

Product standards

To ensure that the components can withstand the loads to which they are likely to be exposed within the application, they must be checked against the respective product standard for external and internal lightning protection.