Two-Dimensional Coupled Electrothermal Method Based on the Unstructured Transmission-Line Modelling Method for Lightning Protection Simulations

Abstract

This paper outlines a fully coupled electrothermal time-domain method to model the effects of lightning strikes and the formation of plasma. The plasma material is described by using the Drude model. This method predicts the formation of the discharge channel by solving the electromagnetic field and the temperature before, during and after the air breaks down. The proposed method is applied to analyse the performance of a number of segmented lightning diverter strips used for lightning protection.