Ground effects on induced voltages from nearby lightning

The lightning induced voltage on overhead lines from return strokes and it's dependency of a lossy ground is analyzed using a new, analytical vector potential formulation. Norton's (1937) approximation and the surface impedance approach are used to take loss effects into account. The surface impedance method predicts in general induced voltages in good agreement with Norton's approximation, but the accuracy of the method is dependent on the variation of the current along the lightning channel. Norton's method is compared with the exact Sommerfeld solution, showing a deviation <10% even for low conducting grounds and distances from 100-1000 m. The effect of stroke location and line termination is also analyzed, showing that a line terminated by it's characteristic impedance and excited by a return stroke at the prolongation of the line is especially sensitive to lossy ground effects. Strokes near the mid-point of an overhead line gives less loss effect than strokes at the end of the line. The surface impedance approximation is derived from Norton's method and the necessary assumptions are outlined.