Improving the computational accuracy of the dynamic electro-geometrical model using numerical solutions

Abstract

The dynamic electro-geometrical model has been applied in various studies to investigate the probability of a lightning strike to parts of a structure. The numerical computation of the dynamic electro-geometrical model (DEGM) follows an iterative step by determining lightning strike points from above to a point on a structure of interest. This computation is often time-consuming and requires extensive computational resources. This study delves into the inner workings of DEGM striking distance computation. It highlights sources of computational numerical errors, such as the effect of the discretisation size. It proposes ways to eliminate such by using a conversion factor while also significantly reducing computation time from more than 14 h to approximately 6 min for a cuboid structure by eliminating ground surface points. The performance of the proposed improved DEGM (IDEGM) was investigated using a floating roof tank and a cuboid structure with a central air termination, and an interception efficiency of 61% was achieved. An alternative case using catenary wires with a total lightning interception efficiency of 99.1% was also implemented. The percentage strike probability for the cases considered shows a close approximation to published results, and this confirms the accuracy of the implemented model. The IDEGM has the benefit of generating results with a significantly reduced computation time of just a few minutes as compared to several hours in previous models.