An intelligent-reduced time method to analyze lightning performance of communication towers and validation using experimental tests

This paper introduces an optimized numerical analysis approach to calculate the number of direct lightning strokes to tall towers. In the conventional numerical method, the lightning leader progression is performed for all possible lightning current values and for all lightning leader tip positions in the space above the tower. In the proposed approach, these time-consuming calculations are reduced by using an intelligent optimization algorithm. Here, a telecommunication tower is selected as a case study, and the original imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is applied to determine its lightning performance in terms of the number of direct lightning strokes and the computing time. In order to evaluate the potential accuracy and consistency of the proposed method, this algorithm has been applied on a test system including the characteristics of a scaled-down communication tower. The simulation results are compared with those of impulse tests conducted on a constructed model in a high voltage laboratory. Finally, the analyses are performed on some effective parameters of lightning performance such as ground slope, breakdown voltage and communication tower height to derive more flexible and comparable results. The simulation results verify the merits of the proposed approach.