Rocket-triggered lightning studies for the protection of critical assets
Lighting protection systems (LPSs) for explosives handling and storage facilities have long been designed similarly to those will for more conventional facilities, but their overall effectiveness in controlling interior electromagnetic (EM) environments has still not been rigorously assessed. Frequent lightning-caused failures of a security system installed in earth-covered explosives storage structures prompted the U. Army and Sandia National Laboratories to conduct a program to determine quantitatively the EM environments inside an explosives storage structure that is struck by lightning. These environments were measured directly during rocket-triggered lightning (RTL) tests in the summer of 1991 and were computed using linear finite-difference, time-domain (FDTD) EM solvers. The experimental and computational results were first compared in order to validate the code and were also used to construct bounds for interior environments corresponding to seven incident lightning flashes. The code insults were also used to develop simple circuit models for the EM field behavior-a process that insulted in a very simple and somewhat surprising physical interpretation of the structure's response that has significant practical and economic implications for design, construction, and maintenance of such facilities.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE; DOD; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Department of Defense, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-76DP00789
- OSTI ID:
- 6602376
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-93-0530C; CONF-930514--1; ON: DE93009633
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Rocket-triggered lightning studies for the protection of critical assets
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Related Subjects
450100* -- Military Technology
Weaponry
& National Defense-- Chemical Explosions & Explosives
661300 -- Other Aspects of Physical Science-- (1992-)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BUILDINGS
DETONATORS
EARTH-COVERED BUILDINGS
ELECTRIC DISCHARGES
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT PROTECTION DEVICES
EXPLOSIVES
FUNCTIONS
LIGHTNING
LIGHTNING ARRESTERS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
ROCKETS
STIMULATION
TRANSFER FUNCTIONS