IEEE Flash v2.

05
================
Copyright (c) 1981-2013, IEEE
All rights reserved.
This program estimates the lightning flashover rates of overhead electric
power transmission and distribution lines, according to IEEE Standards
1243 and 1410.
IEEE Flash is open source software, available from
www.sourceforge.net/projects/ieeeflash
Members of the IEEE PES Lightning Performance of Overhead Lines Working
Group: 15.09.08, and its predecessor organizations, have developed this
program. URL: http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pes/lpdl/
Installation
============
Unzip the archive contents into a directory. Microsoft Excel 2007 or
later is required to run the program in Flash2.xlsm. Also, macros must be
enabled.
After opening the Flash2.xlsm workbook, a menu "IEEE Flash" will appear on
the "Add-Ins" tab on Excel's ribbon. All program functions are accessed
through this menu.
The worksheet "Flash1.9" estimates flashover performance of transmission
lines, without line arresters, according to methods published and
referenced in Standard 1243. You can edit input parameters right on the
sheet, and also read/write parameter sets from text files.
The worksheet "CFO" estimates the total insulation strength of
distribution line poles with multiple insulation components, according to
methods described in Standard 1410. This sheet is still under
development, but works for the examples published in Standard 1410.
All other worksheets will support Flash2.0, which will estimate lightning
flashovers on both transmission and distribution overhead lines, including
surge arresters. In order to contribute to this effort, please register
for a user ID on SourceForge and message the administrator for this
project on SourceForge. All code is written and maintained in Microsoft
Excel Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
Release Notes v2.05
===================
Added a line arrester simulation, with concurrent installation of
OpenEtran.
Release Notes v2.04
===================
1 - Output of critical currents.
2 - Initialize units choice.
Release Notes v2.01

===================
Thanks to Liam Veitch, PB Power.
1 - Fixed bug loading cone tower type from a dat file.
2 - Fixed bug that displayed all Actual Shield Angles as the first one's
value.
Change Log Through v1.90
========================
Version 1.9 used a separate program, compiled from C code, to run the
calculations from a spreadsheet. It supported only the methods in Std.
1243 for transmisison lines.
F L A S H 1.9
PRODUCED BY IEEE WORKING GROUP ON ESTIMATING
LIGHTNING PERFORMANCE OF TRANSMISSION LINES
-----------------------------------------------BASED ON EPRI METHOD BY JOHN ANDERSON
ORIGINAL FORTRAN METHOD BY NATASHA ROUKOS
FIRST BASIC VERSION WRITTEN BY JIM WHITEHEAD 9/85
MODIFIED FOR IBM-PC BY BILL CHISHOLM 1/86 (416)231-4111 X6982
VERSION 1.4 BY JIM WHITEHEAD 9/87
VERSION 1.5 BY ROGER CLAYTON AND BILL CHISHOLM 1/89
VERSION 1.6 BY Ding Yuen and Bill Chisholm 1/90
VERSION 1.7 FROM WG DEC 1996
VERSION 1.8 February 2001
VERSION 1.81 July 2001
- fixed negative shield angles
- fixed the Sargent cone surge impedance
- warning if shielding can't be solved
- compiled under both Borland C++ Builder 5 and Visual C++ 6
- note the xls front end doesn't always work with the BCB5 build
VERSION 1.9 May 2007
- handles the case where 2 or more phases have equal dominance
at a given power-frequency phase angle
- brief output uses English units as appropriate
- increased MAX_ANGLES to 180
Technical Notes on Versions 1.8 through 1.9
===========================================
v1.90 changes from version 1.81:
1 - Properly handles the backflash distribution to different
conductors having equal dominance intervals, which often
occurs on double-circuit lines with symmetry. There is no
change to the BFR, but the backflash rate per 100 km for
each conductor is now reported in the detailed results.
Multi-conductor backflashovers are still not considered.
2 - Provided a sample file, eprired.dat, for the example presented
in chapter 12 of the EPRI Red Book. The modeling assumptions
in Flash have evolved over those originally presented in the
Red Book. The most important change affecting this example is
the reduction of critical flashover voltage at 2 microseconds,
in the case of long spans. See Figure 7 of IEEE Std 1243-1997
for an illustration. Flash calculates a BFR of 1.39 for this

example, compared to a BFR of 1.1 in the EPRI Red Book.

3 - Flash uses the footing resistances as they are input, without
any adjustment for current magnitude or frequency. In IEEE Std
1243-1997, the second paragraph in section 7 may seem to imply
that Flash adjusts the footing resistance, but that is not the
case. The user should make such adjustments manually, if desired.
However, the last paragraph in section B.2 of 1243-1997 indicates
that such adjustments offer no improvement in the Flash program's
predictive accuracy.
4 - The "brief" output of the command-line program now respects the
English/Metric unit selection. This corrects an output problem
in the Excel front end, in which the flashover numbers were always
per 100 km per year, even if the user chose English units and the
output was labeled per 100 miles per year.
5 - There is no change to the Excel front end, except that the version
and date label has been updated in cell A29.
v1.81 changes from version 1.8:
1 - Excel front end works on Windows 95/98.
2 - Fixed output of negative actual shield angles.
3 - Fixed calculation of Sargent cone surge impedance.
4 - Warning message if shielding cannot be solved.
v1.80 changes from v1.7 affecting the results:
1 - An array bounds error was fixed around line 3330 of the
Basic code, affecting the power frequency voltage phase
angles. The percentage of flashovers occuring on the
outside phases of a flat horizontal line will now be
equal. The backflash rates of double-circuit lines will
also generally decrease, often significantly.
2 - The new formulation of beta has been used for the strike
distance to ground in the electrogeometric model. The
perfect shielding angle will usually increase by a few
degrees, and the shielding failure flashover rate will
decrease slightly in cases where it was not zero.
3 - The bundled conductor spacing for English units input
was improperly converted from inches to meters around
line 1090 of the Basic code. It is now properly converted
from inches to mm.