Analysis of lightning current characteristics to investigate lightning strike damages to energy pipeline

Abstract

Australia is one of the most lightning prone area on earth. Lightning strikes have been identified as one of the most common cause of energy pipeline damage in Australia. Therefore, a suitable protection schemes and mitigation strategies against lighting strike damage is very important for Australian pipeline industry. There are a number of research on lighting protection of establishment such as, power systems, buildings, and telecommunications systems, however, very few publications could be found which discuss about protection of pipeline from lightning strike. Assessment of effects in buried pipeline, due to lighting strikes is important. Existing models do not account adequately the effect of the characteristics of soil breakdown channels intercepted by the buried object. This paper aims to investigate the characteristics of lightning current on metal object under the soil of strike point so that lighting attachment to energy pipeline could be understand and a protection technique could be developed. Along with lightning current characteristics, lightning attachment process, distribution method, soil resistivity, propagation of lightning current in soil with a buried pipeline, pipeline electrical properties and other related areas and technologies is explored. The study shows that though there are some research on characteristics of induced on simple buried structures like narrow telephone cable or residential gas pipe, but no substantial research have been done on large comparatively complex structures like buried energy pipelines. Also dynamic behavior of soil and the object to be protected not been considered in protections schemes and experiments.