Thermal Effects of Lightning Currents in Metal Chains

This paper investigates the thermal effects of lightning currents on metal chains and answers whether wearing a metal chain necklace can save a person's life or potentially worsen their injuries. Equations are developed to model the final temperature of wires of several materials when subjected to lightning current. A wire-chain transformation factor is introduced to relate the thermal behavior of a wire to a chain, to extend the wire model to chains. The wire model has a maximum error of 7.8% when skin effects are considered. The experimental results found that chains exhibit arcing and exploding behavior, while wires melt. For the same material, thicker wires melt at a larger peak current than thin wires, while chains explode at a much lower current than wires melt, for the same material and gross diameter. This paper concludes that wearing a metal object might help channel a part of the current away from vital organs. Still, it does not guarantee complete safety and may potentially worsen burn-related injuries.