Laboratory study for estimating the number of lightning flashes to transmission lines

The estimated number of lightning flashes to a transmission line is the vital parameter to evaluate the lightning performance precisely. An experimental study on the factors that have an impact on the number of lightning flashes to transmission lines has been performed at the MSU High Voltage Laboratory. Models of typical transmission lines with different configurations have been tested under both negative polarity and positive polarity of lightning strokes. Based on experiments, the attractive width of transmission lines was established. The attractive width showed a dependence on the height of overhead ground wires and the polarity of lightning. All experimental results are presented and analyzed in this paper.