Study on the effectiveness of lightning rod tips in capturing lightning leaders

This paper addresses the performance of various lightning rod tips: pointed, concave, blunt, flat and conical for lightning air terminal (LAT). To observe the behaviour of the various lightning rod tips, laboratory examination was conducted under two conditions, i.e. corona emission pattern under quasi-static electric field and lightning impulse testing - with and without pre-ionization. The data obtained from the corona emissions were correlated to the surface sharpness area of the tip. Using dimensional analysis, it can be concluded there is strong evidence that increased surface sharpness can lead to an increase in the corona discharge current. In addition, an impulse test was conducted to determine the performance of the LATs with different tip types and sizes. Using the individual and competitive test, it was found that the blunt LAT is the most recommended receptor