Maritime structures and ships lightning protection

This paper investigates and demonstrates a developed technique to use the collection volume method (CVM) for the placement of either conventional or non-conventional lightning protection systems (LPS) for ships. Each lightning eliminator assigned a striking distance, which is calculated as a function of ship height, radius of curvature, ship location, ship dimensions, risk factor, and lightning related parameters. This novel technique was applied to a medium war ship, Cargo, destroyer, as well as an air craft carrier, and showed to be a very efficient mean for lightning protection for these ships. For some design cases, a hybrid system was chosen to be the most efficient and the less expensive system.