When it comes to lightning protection, many people think of Benjamin Franklin’s experiment of flying a kite in a lightning storm. Franklin did usher in the thinking that buildings could be protected from lightning. While he used a simple metal rod to safely direct the electricity, today’s lightning protection design and systems are a little more complex.
Lightning protection is becoming more and more important because the climate has changed in recent years and lightning occurs more frequently. External Lightning Protection can be designed on a facility to protect it from direct lightning strikes. International standards and recommendations from IEC, NFC, UNE, UL, IEEE govern on how these systems are designed and installed. The external protection system comprises of an air terminal network, down conductors and earth termination system. Various types of air terminals and earth termination products are manufactured by LEC.
Below are some very important considerations for lightning protection design systems:
Collecting Data
Accurate data plays a very important role in designing a lightning protection system and is the important deciding factor in the later stage of the design. So, the crucial data to be collected involves dimensions, location and environmental factors of the building/ structure.
Risk Analysis
We offer a complete risk analysis service that includes earth resistivity tests and structural external and internal risk assessment in terms of international standards. These risk analysis reports include all technical drawings and illustrations.
Design
LEC designs internal and external lightning protection systems that range from simple office and administration buildings to large industrial plants for all types of industry sectors such as, photovoltaic plants, petrochemical industry, oil and gas industry, data centers, etc. LEC has patented quality products and over 40 years of experience.
Manufacturing and installation
Only once we have confidence that the lightning protection design parameters are met, we will start a full “for construction” design followed by manufacturing, installation and inspection.
Most older lightning protection systems are interception systems that don’t reduce the odds that lightning will strike a building. Instead, they mitigate the risks of a lightning strike by controlling and harmlessly dispersing the energy they create. These systems are intended to guide the lightning discharge safely to the ground, ideally without impacting anything inside. However, Our Dissipation Systems are designed to prevent lightning strikes to your facility. They use a charge dissipation terminal to release the static building up near the ground during thunderstorms. Without that charge, a streamer cannot form. Therefore, the whole area is an unappealing target for lightning, and it will instead strike somewhere outside of the range of the system, where it can meet a streamer.
Contact a lightning eliminator engineer to learn more.