Lightning is a flash of light that accompanies a high-tension natural electric discharge in the atmosphere. Lightning strikes the ground over 300,000 times a year. Without proper protection, facilities are at risk from structural damage and production downtime. More importantly, their users are at risk of injury. A regulation-compliant lightning conductor system provides the vital protection needed.
Most lightning protection systems do not attract or repel a lightning strike. Rather, they provide specified pathways on which lightning can travel, carrying the destructive power of the lightning strike safely into the ground. Thus, a protection system leaves the structure, its contents, and its occupants unharmed.
The world has change drastically with the rapid progression of technology but lightning protection for such advancement has not changed since Benjamin Franklin’s invention in 1750 up until DAS technology was introduced by Lightning Eliminators in 1971.
The DAS Lightning protection System effectively lowers the likelihood of a direct lightning strike within a given area to virtually zero. It does this by continuously transferring charges from the surface of the earth up to the Ionizer, dissipating these charges into the air to create space charges above the protected facility. The result is that any asset within the zone no longer presents itself as a path of least resistance to lightning. If a thundercloud overhead discharges lightning, it will strike outside the zone of protection.
DAS lightning protection principle:
Lightning is an electric discharge that attempts to equalize voltage between storm clouds and the earth. The difference in polarity between the bottom of the cloud and the ground is the charge differential. When this charge differential is high, the cloud begins to form downward leaders and objects on the ground begin to form upward streamers. A leader then connects with a streamer giving lightning the path it needs to exchange charge between the earth and the cloud, reducing the charge differential. DAS interrupts the formation of these upward streamers through point discharge, a phenomenon where a well-grounded point exchanges ions between the air and the ground.
For over 45 years, LEC has been providing advanced lightning protection systems worldwide. The systems LEC designs, manufactures and applies not only provide the traditional lightning protection schemes but in especially important or volatile areas it can completely avoid the strike, not collect it.
With over 35,000 system-years of actual in field operation and proven success in minimizing the effects of lightning, LEC is the smart risk reduction choice for critical systems lightning protection.