In Lightning Physics and Lightning Protection the authors provide a comprehensive and up-to-date review of lightning, including its hazards and protection techniques. The book considers:
The mechanisms of lightning discharge processes: the initiation of a leader, return stroke and subsequent components, using experimental data and theory.
The effects of large aircraft, high-voltage lines and other high-altitude constructions on lightning trajectory and leader attraction. The action of lightning's electrical and magnetic fields and the lightning current on industrial premises, power transmission lines, underground communications, aircraft and their electrical circuits and the induction of a dangerous overvoltage. Effectiveness of conventional protective measures, and gives technical advice and practical recommendations. The prospects for the preventive control of a lightning leader. The reader will not find here all numerous observations on lightning, but measurements useful for the understanding of lightning and its effects are selected and critically discussed. The clear, straightforward and systematic presentation of complicated material, a deep insight into the physics of lightning, a wide use of simple analytical estimats as well as a detailed illustration of effects by computer simulation create a book that will be of use to a wide circle of professional and advanced students of physics, geophysics, electro-, power-, radio-, aircraft- and spacecraft engineers, who investigate lightning phenomena and have to solve practical protection problems. It will help a specialist involved in new technology to foresee possible hazardous effects, providing them with the information necessary to control the destructive action of lightning.