Close vertical electric fields predicted by a transmission line return-stroke model including corona

In this paper, a transmission line return-stroke model developed by the authors that includes nonlinear (time-varying) losses and that was recently improved with the addition of a dynamic corona model is used for calculating vertical electric fields in the vicinity of the striking point. The resulting model is able to represent in detail many of the most important dynamic processes occurring in the transition from the leader channel to the return-stroke channel. A parametric study is performed to identify the influence of corona parameters on the resulting vertical electric fields for a lossy channel. The obtained results indicate that the inclusion of corona modifies the model predictions in such a way as to reproduce more closely the characteristics of measured remote lightning electric fields.