Modeling lightning strikes to tall towers

In this chapter, we present a review of recent progress in the modeling of lightning strikes to tall structures. Since some tall structures are struck by lightning several tens of times per year, they can be used as ground-truth to measure and calibrate the location accuracy of lightning location systems. In addition, knowledge of the transient processes in tall objects when they a subjected to a lightning strike allows us to use them to calibrate the lightning return stroke currents reported by lightning detection and location systems. Tall objects constitute also a primary source of data from which channel-base lightning current statistics are obtained. These statistics are in turn used to improve the design of lightning protection devices and systems. This chapter is organized as follows: Section 5.2 presents a review of the extension of lightning return stroke models to include the presence of an elevated strike object. Section 5.3 deals with the computational methods for the evaluation of the electromagnetic fields generated by lightning strikes to tall structures. A review of available data on lightning currents from lightning to tall structures is presented in Section 5.4. Finally, a summary is given in Section 5.5.