Application of an electromagnetic modeling method for railway grounding systems subjected to lightning strikes

This document presents the work done for the Belgian railway operator Infrabel with respect to the modeling of grounding systems. Infrabel needed information on how to design the lightning protection systems of the recently deployed GSM-R installations. There exist many methods for simulating lightning strikes on grounding systems. One of these techniques, an electromagnetic method based on Moment Methods, is used to solve the problem. The theory behind the method is described and a novel technique is presented for simulating cylindrical cables without metal sheets. The method is applied to the grounding of the Infrabel GSM-R base station. The influence of the soil conductivity, the length of cables and grounding rods and the type of lightning strike on the effectiveness of the grounding system is researched.