Numerical Modeling of Electrical Discharges in Long Air Gaps Tested With Positive Switching Impulses

The numerical modeling of electrical discharges occurring in atmospheric air has been in continuous development during the past decades in different fields, such as high-voltage techniques and lightning protection. Different methodologies have been proposed to represent the physical phenomena taking place at a single full discharge event, departing both from experimental and theoretical approaches. The implementation of these methodologies in numerical routines combined with the use of numerical methods to determine the electric potential distribution permits the creation of models whose predictions closely agree with the real case situations, where electrode arrangements might have nonsymmetric geometries. In this paper, we present an improved version of a simulation methodology for representing electrical discharges in long air gaps. This simulation methodology includes new elements like: 1) the 3-D leader channel tortuosity based on laboratory experimental measurements and 2) two new methods for the estimation of the electric charge contained in the so-called leader-corona region based on the electrostatic potential of fictitious potential rings representing the active region in front of the leader tip. Results from the simulation were compared with experimental records and a reasonably good agreement is found between them.