On a New Testing Setup for Lightning Air Terminal Corona Emission Patterns Studies

Harsh environmental conditions can damaged a lightning air terminal (LAT). If the tip of LAT is altered than the corona emission pattern will also be altered. The corona emission current is one of parameters to assess a LAT performance. Corona emission can only be formed when a particular humidity degree is achieved. Concerning this matter a new testing setup has been developed in the Institute of High Voltage and High Current (IVAT), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, UTM Skudai. This present paper aims to introduce the new experimental setup for the study of corona emission patterns and corona emission currents of five types of LATs. The results show that the blunt LAT produces almost zero corona emission current That means that it is more attractive to lightning downward leader.