Lightning Air Terminals - Is Shape Important?

William Rison (Senior Member, IEEE),

Charles B. Moore, and Graydon D.Aulich
Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
Socorro, New Mexico USA
rison@nmt.edu
hypothesis that it might be possible to prevent lightning strikes
to a structure by erecting sharp grounded conductors on the
structure - the sharp conductors might be able to silently
discharge the thundercloud, preventing a lightning discharge:

Abstrad-Benjamin Franklin originally proposed the use of

sharp pointed lightning rods as a way to prevent lightning strikes.
It was soon found that such rods did not prevent lightning
strikes, hut that they worked to prevent damage to a strncture
when it as struck by lightning. Conventional lightning protection
systems evolved from this finding. Conventional lightning
protection systems consist of air terminals (lightning rods) used
to intercept a lightning discharge, downcondnctors used to carry
the current, and a grounding system used to dissipate the current
away from the protected structure. However, it has long been
recognized by the scientific community that lightning protection
systems do not prevent lightning, and that the sharp points on
lightning rods traditionally used in North America are not
needed for that purpose. To be effective air terminals should be
designed so tbat they are much more likely to be struck by
lightning than objects on the structure they are protecting.
Recent field studies indicate that a lightning rod with a blunt tip
is more effectivethan a lightning rod with a sharp tip.

... houses, churches and ships [should be provided] on

the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of iron
made sharp as a needle, and gilt to prevent rusting, and
from the foot of those rods a wire down the outside of the
building into the ground, or down round one of the
shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the
water.
Franklin and others installed lightning rods on structures
to try to protect them by preventing lightning. While there is
no evidence that lightning strikes were prevented, it soon
became evident that, when lightning did strike a structure
equipped with lightning rods, the lightning would attach to one
of the elevated rods, the lightning current was carried to ground
through the down conductors, and the structure was protected.
This led Franklin to modify his claim for lightning rods to
include the ability to provide a safe path to ground for the
lightning current:

Two nonsonventional lightning protection systems are heavily

marketed in North America - Early Streamer Emission @SE) air
terminals and Charge Transfer Systems (CTS). Proponents of
ESE air terminals claim that such devices have a much larger
zone of protection than do conventional air terminals. Proponents
of CTSs claim tbat corona current emilted from their arrays of
sharp points can prevent lightning strikes to protected structures.
Field studies of ESE air terminals show that their performance is
similar to that of conventional sharp-pointed air terminals, and
that they do not have the greatly enhanced zone of protection
claimed for them. Field studies of Charge Transfer Systems show
that they do not prevent lightning strikes

I have mentioned in several of my letters, and except

once, always in the olternutive, viz, that pointed rods
erected on buildings, and communicating with the moist
earth, would either prevent a stroke, or, if not prevented,
could conduct it, so as that the building should suffer no
damage.

Kqwords-air lerminals, Charge Transfer Systems, Early

Streamer Emission air terminals, lightning, ligltlning proreclion,
lightning rods

Since Franklins invention of the lightning rod it has been

convincingly demonstrated that conventional lightning
protection systems are extremely effective in preventing
damage to protected structures from direct lightning strikes [2,
31. During the 1800s most improvements in conventional
LPSs came about through trial and error - analysesof system
failures led to improvements in the placement of air terminals
and down conductors, and in grounding system installation.
With the development of modem inshumentation over the past
eighty years, our scientific understanding of lightning has
greatly improved, which has led to a better understanding of
and improvements to LPSs.

I.
INTRODUCTlON
Conventional lightning protection systems (LPSs) have
developed from the pioneering work of Benjamin Franklin in
the late 1700s [I]. Franklin was the first to conclusively
demonstrate that lightning is an electrical discharge, similar in
phenomenology (though not magnitude) to the small sparks
Franklin generated in his laboratory experiments. Franklin
found that if be approached a charged object with a grounded
blunt conductor, a spark would develop between the two.
However, if be approached the charged object with a grounded
sharp conductor, a spark did not develop; rather, the charged
object was silently discharged. This led Franklin to the

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Some aspects of LPSs are historical canyovers from

Franklins original work, and do not necessarily follow from
current scientific understanding of lightning. One of these is
the use in North America of traditional sharp pointed lightning
rods.
In 1878 several British.societies organized a conference on
lightning protection. In 1882, they issued their report, Report
of the Lighining Rod Conference, which laid out a code of
rules for those who installed lightning protection systems in
Britain [4]. This document (and its American successor, the
National Fire Protection Associations Specijcations f o r
Proiecfion of Buildings against Lighfning [ 5 ] ) , contained the
following statement:

ground are intensified at the extremities of an exposed object

to such an extent that the fields at the extremities can reach the
value needed to break down air (3 MV/m at sea level). When
this happens, the object emits corona current, which produces
a positive space charge above it. The corona current continues
to flow until the space charge reduces the field at the
extremities of the object to helow the air breakdown threshold.
All exposed pointed objects emit corona current - tree leaves,
grass blades, antennas, power lines, etc. The space charge
produced by objects on the ground limits the fields at the
ground to the 5 to 20 kV/m value mentioned above. Without
this space charge, the fields at the ground under a
thunderstorm would often exceed 100 kV/m.
As the charge separation continues in the thundercloud,
electric fields intensify inside the cloud. When the fields
become strong enough an electrical breakdown (lightning)
occurs, which discharges the thundercloud and reduces its
electric field. The majority of lightning is intracloud discharges between the mid-level negative charge and the
upper positive charge. A significant fraction of lightning is
cloud-to-ground (CG) - between the mid-level negative
charge in the thundercloud and the induced positive charge on
the ground below. (There are also positive cloud-to-ground
discharges, not discussed in this paper, between a positive
charge region in a thundercloud and an induced negative
charge on the ground.)
A negative CG discharge begins in the lower part of the
mid-level negative charge region of the thundercloud. The
breakdown propagates downward in a process known as a
stepped leader. It develops in steps of about 50 m in length,
with an interval of about 50 ps between the steps, and an
average velocity of about 1.5 x IOs d s . This gives lightning
its characteristic jagged appearance. The stepped leader
carries negative charge towards the ground. A charge of about
1 mC/m is deposited on the leader channel, and a current of
about 100 A flows as the channel develops.
As the leader nears the ground, the electric fields on the
ground intensify to such a level that the field near the tips of
objects becomes strong enough to produce positive sparks
(called streamers, or counter-leaders) which race upward
towards the descending negative leader. If the stepped leader
is too iir away from the ground, the electric fields between the
leader and the streamer are not large enough to sustain the
propagation of the streamer, and the streamer dies out.
Eventually the leader gets close enough to the ground so that
the intervening fields are strong enough to sustain a streamer,
and a streamer will propagate to attach to the descending
leader. When the streamer and leader meet, a conductive path
to ground is established, and the charge on the leader channel
flows to ground. This is the high current return stroke of a
lightning discharge. Typical return stroke currents are 15 kA,
and currents can he as large as 200 kA.
The object which emits the streamer which wins the race the one which reaches the stepped leader fust - is the object
which gets struck by the lightning discharge. The distance

A lightning conductor fulfills two functions; it

facilitates the progress of the electricity to the earth,
carrying it off harmlessly, and tends to prevent
disruptive discharge by neutralizing the conditions
which determine such discharge in the vicinity of the
conductor. _..The second object is accomplished by
the conductor being surmounted by a point or
points.
Over the next few decades, however, it was realized that
lightning rods could not neutralize the conditions which lead to
lightning strikes. In 1933, M. G . Lloyd of the National Bureau
of Standards w o t e [6]:
Most of those who have given considerable study to
this problem [lightning protection] recognize that the
discharges from the points of lightning rods have little,
if any, value in preventing a stroke of lightning, and that
it is not important that the points should be sharp.
While it is now well known that lightning rods neither
eliminale nor reduce the probability of a lightning strike, the
authors have long been interested in the question of whether
the shape of a lightning rod might influence its effectiveness.
This paper discusses that question.
11.

THE LIGHTNING
ATTACHMENT
PROCESS

In order to discuss the effectiveness of lightning air

terminals, it is n e c e s s q to have a hasic understanding of the
phenomenology of the lightning attachment process. More
detailed discussion can be found in standard references on
lightning (e.g., [7]). Physical processes in a thundercloud
separate electrical charge inside the cloud. In a typical
thundercloud, there is a mid-level negative charge at ahout
6 km altitude and an upper positive charge at about IO km
altitude. (Thunderstorm charging is a complicated process,
depending on many environmental conditions, and many
storms have charge structures different than the typical
thunderstorm I describe here.) The negative charge in the mid
level of the thundercloud induces a positive charge on the
ground beneath it. The electric fields on the ground under a
thunderstorm are typically 5 to 20 kV/m. The fields at the

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from the grounded object to the tip of the descending leader at

the time the successful streamer is initially emitted from the
object is called the striking distance. The striking distance for
a typical lightning strike is about 100 m.
111.

EFFECTIVE LIGHTNING RODS

An effective lightning rod is one which is much more likely

to generate a successful propagating streamer than is a part of
the structure it is protecting. It has long been known that tall,
exposed objects are more likely to get struck than are shorter,
shielded objects. There are two reasons for this:

1) If a taller object and a shorter object generate streamers

at the same time, the streamer from the taller object will be
more likely to attach to the approaching leader because that
streamer has a shorter distance to travel. This is the basis of the
electrogeometric method for the placement of air terminals in
an LPS [PI, If one assumes a 50 meter striking distance, then
air terminals should be placed such that a streamer &om an air
terminal will have a shorter distance to travel to meet an
approaching leader than will a streamer from any point on the
protected structure, regardless of the direction from which the
leader is approaching. A practical way to place lightning rods
using this method is the Rolling Ball method [9]

Figure 1. Blunt-tippcd lightning rods which were struck by lightning

6meter separation insured that the Perturbation in the field
strengths at one of the tips produced by an adjacent rod was
about 1% of the ambient field strength. Each rod was equipped
with a fuse or a lightning counter to determine if it were struck
by lightning. The rods were made of aluminum, a metal which
is much more likely to melt at the attachment point, and hence
show physical evidence when struck by lightning than
materials such as nickel-plated steel or copper are. A typical
setup bad a traditional sharp-pointed air terminal and a blunt air
terminal in competition. The diameters of the blunt rods varied
from 9.5 mm to 51 nun.

2) A tall, exposed object will provide electrical shielding

for a nearby lower object. The electric fields at the shielded
object will be lower than they would be if the taller object were
not present. Consequently the shielded object will generate a
streamer later than it would have if the taller object had not
been there. This is why an LPS made of a grid of overhead
wires is so effective.
The electrogeometric method is based on the assumption
that all objects are equally likely to generate streamers under
the same conditions. However, if an object of one shape were
more effective at generating a successful streamer than an
object of a different shape, then the electrogeometric method
will not hold for all placements of air terminals - an object on
the protected structure with a more optimal shape for
generating streamers might produce a streamer earlier than a
less optimally shaped lightning rod closer to the approaching
leader. Moore [lo] suggested that lightning rods with blunt
tips might be more effective at generating successful streamers
than rods with sharp tips. We recently conducted a twelve year
field study to try to determine if the shape of an air terminal
affects its ability to successhlly generate a streamer. Results
of the field studies are discussed in [I I], and are summarized
below.

Over the twelve years of the study, none of the sharp rods
were struck by lightning, whereas 13 of the blunt rods were. A
photograph of six blunt rods which were struck is shown in
Figure 1. None of the blunt rods with diameters of 9.5 nun or
51 mm were struck. Most of the strikes have been to 19 mm
diameter rods. These results indicate that a moderately blunt
tipped object is more likely to generate a successful streamer
than is a sharp tipped object or an object with an extremely
blunt tip. Reasons for this are discussed in detail in [12,13].

B. Streamers from Lighfning Rods

In an attempt to learn more about the generation of
streamers from lightning rods, we measured the streamer
currents generated from several rods of different shapes in
response to approaching leaders. We used three air terminals
installed on 6 m tall masts separated by 6 m, in the form on an
equilateral triangle. We measured the currents from the masts
using 12-bit 5 M H z digitizers. We also measured the electric
field change induced by an approaching stepped leader.
Figure 2 shows the results for one lightning strike. The black
trace in Figure 2 shows the increase in the electric field as a
stepped leader approaches. Note that the ambient electric field
increased from about 30 kV/m to about 60 kV/m. While the
electric field tends to increase with time, there are instances

A. Competition benveen Air Terminals of Different Shapes

In order to determine if the shape of an air terminal affects
its ability to generate a successful streamer, we arranged a
competition between air terminals of different shapes. We
conducted the experiment in an area with a high lightning strike
density - on a ridge near the 3288-111 high summit of South
Baldy Peak in the Magdalena Mountains of central New
Mexico. We used a number of setups, each of which had two
rods of different shapes. The two rods were mounted on
6 meter tall poles, separated by a distance of 6 meters. The

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where the field decreases for a short period of time. These

decreases are due to the shielding effect of space charge
produced by objects in the vicinity. As a negatively charged
leader approaches, the fields at the tips of nearby objects
become strong enough to induce the objects to emit positive
corona current. That positive charge provided some shielding
from the approaching negative charge, and temporarily reduced
the field at the ground.

The data indicate that all three rods generated attempted

streamers in response to an approaching leader. However, only
the blunt rod generated a successful streamer - a streamer
which propagated to meet the approaching leader.

Our results show that a blunt tipped object is more likely to

generate a successful streamer than is a sharp tipped one. If a
lightning protection system using sharp tipped lightning rods
protects a stlucture, then a blunt object on the structure may
generate a propagating streamer earlier than one of the
lightning rods. A more effective LPS would be one which used
blunt tipped lightning rods, so that an object on the protected
building is less likely to generate a propagating streamer earlier
than is one of the lightning rods.

The colored traces in Figure 2 show the currents emitted

from three air terminals. The blue trace is the current 6om a
19 nun diameter blunt rod, the green trace is the current f7om a
traditional sharp pointed rod, and the red trace is the current
6om a so-called Early Streamer Emission air terminal
(discussed more fully in Section IV). The figure shows the
responses from about 500 ps to about 50 p before the high
current return stroke of the lightning strike. Starting at about
370 p before the return stroke, all three rods s m e d emitting
attempted streamers - streamen which died out because the
fields between the tip of the air terminal and the approaching
leader were too small to sustain the streamer's propagation.
The currents in the early attempted streamers were about 1 A.
As the fields increased with the approaching leader, the
attempted streamer currents became larger. At about 150 ps
before the return stroke, the blunt rod (blue trace) generated a
streamer which did not die out. M e r the current initially rose
to about 4 A, it fell to about 1 A, but the streamer continued to
propagate. At about 100 ps before the return stroke, the current
began to increase rapidly as the streamer developed in
intensity. When the current reached a value of 8 A it saturated
the instrumentation; a short while later, a fuse used to protect
the instrumentation blew. A subsequent inspection of the blunt
rod showed fused spots where the lightning had attached to the
rod.

N.

LIGHTNING
PROTECTION
SYSTEMS
Currently there are two widely promoted non-conventional
lightning systems which are claimed to have a scientific basis.
These are the so-called Early Streamer Emission @SE) air
terminals, and Charge Transfer Systems (CrS's).
NONCO"TI0NAL

Early Streamer Emission Air Terminals

ESE air terminals have either a unique shape or active
elements at the air terminal tip. Proponents of ESE air
terminals claimed that these features cause the terminals to
generate streamers significantly earlier than conventional air
terminals [14]. The earlier streamer generation is claimed to
effectively increase the height of the air terminal by AL = v AT,
where v is the velocity of the streamer and AT is the time
advantage of the ESE air terminal. Manufacturers of ESE air
terminals measure AT in laboratory studies. Typical reported
values of AT are 50 to 300 p, and the value used for v is
lO"m/s. This purportedly gives an ESE air terminal an
advantage AL of about 100 m over a conventional air terminal.
There are three significant problems with this claim:

E L E C ~ C r l E L D C H * N O E A N D C U R R E N T T O L I G ~ N C i R O O S . W ~I1l 7
f f. l . r n 1 7 u T

1) Proponents of ESE devices claim a streamer propagation

speed of about IO6d s . However both laboratory and field
measurements of streamer speeds show that the speeds are on
the order of IO4 m/s tn 10' d s , one to two orders of magnitude
lower than claimed [I5 ,161. Using the actual speed of leaders,
the advantage of ESE rods is decreased by one to two orders of
magnitude.

2) Even if an ESE device were to emit a streamer

significantly earlier than a conventional air terminal did, it
would be effective only if the streamer were able to propagate
from the ESE device to the approaching leader. The
propagation of a streamer does not depend on the conditions at
the tip of the air terminal, but on the conditions between the tip
and the approaching leader, which are not affected by ESE
devices. In an analysis of ESE devices, Mackerras et al. [17]
conclude that "it is not possible to gain a significant
improvement in lightning interception performance by causing
the early emission of a streamer kom an air terminal."

Black DBlm E (lor kVlm multiply by 10): Blue: 14mm I&

Red. RBdimcCv~'ESP devi-:
Green: FranWin md

-L

4s

-U0

-a3

-250

-2m

~150

-,m

-50

TIME RELATIVE TO TRIGGER SIGNAL (microremnds)

Figure 2. Lightning rod responses (colored traces) to increasing

electric field (black trace) from an approaching lightning stepped
leader.

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3) Our field studies [ I l l (e.g., Figure 2) show that ESE

devices do not generate streamers any earlier than conventional
air terminals do. We tested the two most popular ESE air
terminals marketed in North America, and found that their

303

strike without preventing strikes. A CTS has all the elements

of a conventional LPS, and probably reduces lightning damage
for the same reasons a conventional LPS does. ACTS contains
a grid of overhead wires, which functions both as a preferred
strike point for a lightning discharge, and to reduce the fields at
the protected structure below, reducing the probability of a
streamer from the structure itself A CTS has a low impedance
path to a good grounding system, which gives a path to ground
for the large lightning currents when the CTS is struck.

responses to approaching leaders were similar to that of a

conventional sharp painted lightning rod. During ow twelve
year field study we found no evidence that any of the ESE
device were struck by lightning, although we have many
documented cases in which lightning struck with the claimed
zones of protection of the ESE devices.
B. Charge Transfer Systems
A Charge Transfer System typically consists of an array of
many sharp conducting points erected over a facility to be
protected. Corona current 6om the points on the array
supposedly transfers a significant amount of charge 60m the
array into a region above the array. Conductors between the
array of points and a grounding system provide a path for the
current 6om ground to the points in the array. The primary
claim made for Charge Transfer Systems is that this space
charge above the array prevents lightning discharges to the
protected facility. When originally introduced, the claim was
similar to the original hypothesis of Franklin: that the charge
generated by the CTS would silently discharge a thundercloud
and prevent lightning [18]. When it became obvious that the
additional charge from a few thousand paints would not add
significantly to the charge generated 60m the large number of
natural points (tree leaves, grass blades, etc.), the proponents
changed their arguments to say that a CTS would inject
sufficient charge (about 5 C ) above it to neutralize an
approaching leader [19]. It is easy to demonstrate that it is
impossible to inject the necessary charge into a small volume
above such an array [16]. The current claim is that a small
amount of space charge above the array will inhibit the
formation of steamers from the array. causing the lightning to
strike a nearby object rather than the array and the protected
structure below [20]. However, all of these mechanisms
require that an array of closely spaced points generate
significantly more corona current than a single point. Field
studies of arrays of paints show that this is not the case
[21,22,23].

V.

Field studies of two non-conventional lightning protection

systems (Early Streamer Emission air terminals and Charge
Transfer Systems) show that these systems do not function as
claimed by their proponents. ESE air terminals have been
shown to be no more effective than sharp pointed lightning
rods. While Charge Transfer Systems may reduce damage
60m lightning strikes, they do so in the same way that much
less expensive conventional lightning protection systems do.
They do not eliminate lightning strikes as claimed.
REFERENCES

Because the mechanism by which a Charge Transfer

System is supposed to work in not clear, the best way to
investigate the effectiveness of a CTS is to determine whether
or not such systems get struck by lightning. Anecdotal
accounts of arrays being struck do not necessarily invalidate
the systems - an array could have been improperly installed or
maintained, which could reduce its effectiveness. The best way
to assess the effectiveness of CTSs is to compare two similar
structures, one of which is equipped with a CTS and a similar
control structure without a CTS. There have been several such
studies done [22,24,25,26]. All of the studies have shown that
the Charge Transfer Systems were struck by lightnihg (as were
the control structures), and that there was no significant
reduction in the frequency of lightning strikes to a structure
equipped with a CTS.

[I]
[2]

131

[4]
[SI

161

[q

The main selling point used by manufacturers of CTSs is

that their customers report significant decreases in lightning
damage after a structure has been equipped with a C T S . It is
important to note that a decrease in (or elimination of) lightning
damage does not necessarily indicate the elimination of
lightning strikes. In fact, a well designed conventional LPS
will greatly reduce or eliminate damage 6om a direct lightning

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CONCLUSIONS

A conventional lightning protection system consist of air

terminals which act as preferential receptors of lightning
strikes, downconductors to cany the large lightning currents,
and a grounding system to dissipate the lightning current away
60m the protected structure. The air terminals in an LPS
should be higher than objects on the protected structure, and
should be designed to be more effective at the generation of
successfully propagating streamers. A twelve year field study
has shown that lightning rods with moderately blunt tips
(19 mm diameter) are more effective than rods with sharp tips
or extremely blunt tips (> 50mm). Lightning protection
systems using sharp rods have a long history of effectiveness,
but systems which use blunt rods should be even more
effective.

[SI

[9]
[IO]

304

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