Investigation on lightning attractive width of transmission lines: Experimental Studies

Experimental studies on the lightning attractive width of transmission lines are presented in this paper. Using negative and positive switching impulses to simulate lightning phenomena, studies were performed at the Mississippi State University High Voltage Laboratory. The first study was investigation on the effect of ground wire height, ground wire separation, and polarity of lightning strokes. The second study was investigation on the effect of the dimension of typical transmission line configurations. These effects had impact on the attractive width. Test results were also compared to line observations. Results of the investigations can help utilities to estimate the number of lightning flashes to the transmission line.