IX International Symposium on

Lightning Protection
26th-30th November 2007 Foz do Iguau, Brazil

CURRENT DISTRIBUTION IN A TELECOMMUNICATION TOWER

STRUCK BY ROCKET-TRIGGERED LIGHTNING
C.F. Barbosa, F.E. Nallin

S. Person, A. Zeddam

CPqD Telecom & IT Solutions

France Tlcom R&D
ahmed.zeddam@orange-ftgroup.com
grcelio@cpqd.com.br
SP-340, km 118 - Campinas - SP - Brazil
Abstract - This paper presents the results of the
measurement of currents carried out on an experimental
radio base station struck by rocket-triggered lightning.
Section 2 describes the test site, which is based on the
installation of a rocket platform on the top of a metallic
tower and the placement of current probes at strategic
locations. Section 3 presents the measurements of
representative return stroke currents and analyses its main
features. Section 4 presents the currents recorded in the
coaxial cables that run along the tower, where their
waveforms are compared with the waveforms of the
corresponding stroke currents. The results allow an
assessment of the fraction of the stroke current that is
carried by the coaxial cables. Finally, Section 5 analyses the
effect of placing an additional earth connection on the
coaxial cables, showing that it may increase the current in
the cables.

1 INTRODUCTION
The access to telecommunication services by means of
wireless connections has increased intensively after the
introduction of mobile telephony. In order to provide an
adequate coverage to the service, it is often necessary to
install the antennas on the top of elevated structures. In
many occasions, the operator has to erect a tower to hold
the antennas, resulting in a large number of towers
protruding around, and actually changing the urban
landscape. In lightning-prone areas, those towers are
likely to be struck by lightning flashes, so that adequate
protection measures are needed in order to assure a
desired level of reliability to the service and, of course,
the safety of the personnel. The prescription of those
measures in a cost-effective approach has to take into
account the physical processes by which the return stroke
current spreads itself among the many conductors
available, including the tower's metallic components and
the telecommunication cables placed along the tower.
However, even in specialized communities, it is not
difficult to find controversies related to the modelling of
this process. Therefore, this paper is aimed to shed some
light on this subject, by presenting some results of
measurements carried out on a telecommunication tower
struck by rocket-triggered lightning.

2 TEST SITE DESCRIPTION

The experiments have been conducted at the test site with
rocket-triggered lightning of Cachoeira Paulista - Brazil.
This test site is the result of a technical partnership
between Brazilian and French institutions and is hosted
by the INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais)
at Cachoeira Paulista - SP - Brazil. The detailed
description of this site can be found in [1] - [3].
2.1 Telecommunication tower
The telecommunication tower is a standard metallic tower
used by the Brazilian operators to provide access to
mobile telephony. It is 30 m high and has three legs
which are interconnected regularly by a set of cross-arms.
At ground level, the distance between adjacent legs is 2.4
m. The three legs and the cross-arms are made of
galvanized steel and held together by bolts and nuts. Fig.1
shows a photo of the tower, where it is also shown the
nearby equipment housing.

Fig.1 - Telecommunication tower and nearby housing

In the axis of the tower there is a ladder-like steel

structure that has some regularly spaced cross-arms to
hold the cables. The feeder cables are composed by three
coaxial cables which go from the housing up to the
tower's top. The earthing and bonding scheme of the
tower complies with ITU-T Rec. K.56 [4]. Its earthing
system can be described as made by three counterpoises
6 m long spreading out from the tower base, which is also
connected to the earthing system of the equipment
housing. The latter is made by a buried conductor in the
form of a rectangle around the housing, having vertical
rods at its corners and being regularly connected to the
structural steel of the housing. The low frequency
resistance of this earthing system was measured just
before the experiments and it was 10 .
2.2 Equipment housing
The equipment housing is a masonry building 5 m high
and having 5 m on the side facing the tower and 6 m on
the other side. It is powered by a low voltage line
connected to a generator located about 100 m away. The
vertical coaxial cables (feeder) from the tower bend
horizontally at 2.5 m above ground level and go into the
housing. At the point of entry, the outer conductors of the
coaxial cables are bonded to the earthing bar located at
this point. This earthing bar is connected by three down
conductors to the housing's earthing system, as
recommended by [4]. A steel tray follows the feeder
cables in this path and it is also bonded to the tower in
one side and to the earthing bar in the other. Inside of the
housing, the feeder cables follow a path through a
metallic tray up to dummy radio equipment, reproducing
the setup usually encountered in radio base stations. The
extremities of the feeder cable are bonded to the tower
structure at the top and to the earthed tray at the dummy
radio. Inside the housing there are oscilloscopes
connected to current probes. One of the probes is placed
around one of the feeder cables just before it enters the
housing. Fig.2 shows schematically these connections.

2.3 Rocket platform

At the top of the tower there is a platform that is capable
of launching up to four rockets during a single
thunderstorm. The rockets carry a thin wire that leads to
the formation of a downward leader and, subsequently, a
return stroke. The process of triggering lightning with
wired rockets is described in detail by Rakov [5]. The
platform is insulated from the tower by means of three
1.5 m high insulators, so that the return stroke current
flows through a conductor which connects the platform to
the tower. A current probe is placed around this
conductor, allowing the measurement of the current at the
tower's top.
The current probe was attached to a metallic cabinet
containing an oscilloscope, which is connected to it
through a voltage divider and a splitter. The function of
the splitter is to feed the probe's output to more than one
channel, thus allowing a high measuring range. The
trigger level was set to 1 kA, the maximum measurable
peak current was 100 kA and the bandwidth of the system
was 1.5 MHz. The oscilloscope was controlled remotely
by a fiber optics connection to the control station. The
power to this equipment was supplied by batteries which
are charged by a set of solar panels. In order to save
power, the equipment was turned on only during alert
conditions. This was made by means of a special optical
switch controlled by the supervisory software. Fig.3
shows the rocket platform at the tower's top.

Fig.3 - Tower top with rocket platform

Fig.2 - Scheme of the feeder cables entering the housing

3 RETURN STROKE CURRENT

Current (kA)

-2

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

-4
-6
-8
-10
-12
-14

Time (us)

Fig.5 - Current waveform recorded in 4th Feb.2005

2
0
0

Current (kA)

The direct measurement of the return stroke current was

made at the top of the tower, as it minimizes the influence
of the reflections at the tower extremities. This issue has
been investigated by Rakov [6], considering towers with
heights from 4.5 m to 540 m, and he concluded that
current peaks are not significantly influenced by the
reflections in the tower, provided that the measurements
are taken at the top of the tower. A second current
measurement was also made at the bottom of the tower,
by means of short-circuited loop magnetically coupled
with the tower. This system has a bandwidth of 350 kHz
and proven to be useful by proving recordings of the
stroke current in a longer time basis. The experiment
reported in this paper was carried out in February 2005,
where three successful flashes were triggered on the
tower. The Fig.4 shows a picture of one flash taken at the
evening of 4th Feb. 2005, where the tower profile can be
identified against the remaining day light.

10

20

30

40

-2
-4
-6
-8
-10

Time (us)

Fig.6 - Current waveform recorded in 19th Feb.2005

4 FEEDER CURRENT

Fig.4 - Flash triggered at 4th Feb. 2005

The current waveforms of the strokes that have been
recorded can be represented by the two samples shown in
Fig.5 and 6. The waveform of Fig.5 is the first and unique
return stroke of a flash triggered in 4th Feb. 2005 (the
same shown in Fig.4). The current has 11.7 kA of peak
value and a front time equal to 0.3 s. It is worth noting
that the measured front time is very close to the nominal
useful rise time of the current probe (0.25 s), so that the
actual front time may be even shorter than the measured
value. The waveform has a pronounced peak and then
fades way slowly, resembling an exponential decay.
The waveform of Fig.6 is the first return stroke of a threestroke flash triggered in 19th Feb. 2005. The current has
7,0 kA of peak value and a front time equal to 1.0 s. The
peak is less pronounced than the waveform of Fig.5 and it
has also an exponential-like decay. As shown by those
waveforms, the current front time of triggered flashes is
relatively short and is usually comparable with the front
time of subsequent strokes from natural flashes.

For each stroke, the current in one coaxial cable (feeder)

was measured at the point just before it enters the
building, as shown in Fig.2. The idea was to assess the
portion of the stroke current that is carried by the feeder.
The typical waveforms recorded can be represented by
those shown in Fig.7 and 8. In Fig.7 there is a waveform
related to a stroke current with a short front time. In fact,
the waveform of Fig.7 was produced by the stroke current
of Fig.5. It shows a very pronounced peak followed by a
slow decay. On the other hand, in Fig.8 there is the
waveform produced by the stroke current of Fig.6, i.e. a
stroke current with a longer front time. It shows a very
small peak followed by a slow decay.
From the measurements, it seems clear that the
pronounced peak displayed in Fig.7 is related to the short
front time of the stroke current. This may be caused by
the reflections of the current at ground level. As stated by
Rakov [6], the peak current measured at the bottom of a
tower is usually more strongly influenced by the transient
process in the tower than the peak current at the top. As
the reflection coefficient at ground level is close to +1,
one should expect a higher current at ground level, which
quickly goes to the "steady state" value as the reflections
are damped away. Indeed, peak currents measured at the
bottom of the Oskantino tower provided values about a
factor of two higher than the peak currents measured near
the tower top [6].

The effect of the reflections depends on the relation

between the front time of the current and the transit time
along the tower. Assuming that the current travels along
the tower with the velocity of light, the transit time across
the tower (from bottom to top and back to bottom) is 0.2
s. Considering the front time of the stroke current from
Fig.5 and 6, leads to the ratios 1.5 and 5, respectively.
Therefore, the reflections in the tower will be much more
pronounced in the case of Fig.5 than in the case of Fig.6.
As mentioned before, the actual front time of Fig.5 may
be even shorter than 0.3 s, enhancing the reflections.
As the current at ground level seems to be affected by
reflections, the ratio between the peak current of the
feeder cable and the peak current of the return stroke shall
be assessed after some micro-seconds, i.e. after the
reflections have vanished away. Taking as reference t =
10 s in the Fig.5-8 (i.e., allowing 6 s to the transient
process to fade away) leads to a ratio of 2,0% and 2.5%
for the Fig.7 and 8, respectively. Applying the theoretical
procedure described in Rec.K56 [4] leads to a ratio of
1.9%, which is in agreement with the measurements. The
rationale used by Rec.K.56 considers that the current
distribution is governed by the inductances (instead of the
resistances) of the conductors, which seems to be
confirmed by the experiments. The fraction of the stroke
current that flows through the feeder allows the
calculation of the differential voltage applied to the input
of the radio equipment and, therefore, the assessment of
the need to install a surge protective device (SPD).
0
0

10

20

30

40

Current (A)

-100

-200

5 EARTHING OF THE FEEDER

The radio base station of the test site was built following
the procedures described in ITU-T Rec.K.56 [4]. In this
recommendation, the feeder is earthed at the top of the
tower (close to the antennas), at the point it enters the
equipment housing and at the equipment frame. However,
some operators usually provide additional earthing points
along the tower (depending on its height) and, in
particular, at the point where the feeder leaves the tower
towards the building. During the discussion of this issue
with telecommunication engineers, some concerns have
been raised about the need of these additional earthing, as
there was some reports that it could lead to corrosion of
the feeder. A simplified theoretical analysis led to the
conclusion that those additional earthing do not change
significantly the current in the feeder and, therefore,
could be avoided (as stated in [4]). However, this
procedure raised strong opposition from some other
engineers, on the grounds that ETSI Guide EG 200 053
[7] requires the earthing at the feeder's bending point as
mandatory. Therefore, at the end of the measuring
campaing, an earthing connection has been placed at the
bending point of the feeder cables, which is represented
by the dashed line in Fig.2.
One succesfull flash was triggered using this
configuration and its results are presented in the
following. The stroke current displayed a short front time
and a peak value equal to 6.2 kA. The resultant feeder
current is shown in Fig.9, and it can be seen that it is very
similar to the waveform of Fig.7 (feeder unearthed). In
order to compare the intensities of the feeder currents, it
is interesting to nomalize them by the peak value of the
corresponding stroke current. This is shown in Fig.10,
where the current amplitude has been expressed by a
percentage of the stroke current.

-300

-400
Time (us)

Fig.7 - Feeder current from fast rising stroke current

0

0
0

10

20

30

40

20

30

-100
Current (A)

-50
Current (A)

10

-100

-200

-300

-150

-400

-200
Time (us)

Fig.8 - Feeder current from slow rising stroke current

Time (us)

Fig.9 - Feeder current with "bending point" earthed

40

Percent of the peak stroke current (%)

0
0

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

-1

-2

-3

Finally, the procedure of earthing the feeder cable at the

point where it bends horizontally to depart from the tower
seems to lead to an increase on the feeder current, at least
for the conditions considered in the test site. The results
from the experiments showed an increase of 1/3 on the
feeder current, resulting from the additional earthing.

-4

7 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

-5

-6
Time (us)

Fig.10 - Effect of earthing the feeder "bending point"

(bold line: feeder unearthed; thin line: feeder earthed)
It can be seen in Fig.10 that the earthing of the feeder at
the bending point seems to enhance the feeder current by
a factor of about 1/3. The value of this enhancement may
be influenced by the particular characteristics of the
stroke currents but, in any case, the earthing of the
bending point seems to increase the current in feeder. The
physical process behind this enhancement is still to be
worked out, but it seems related to the provision of an
additional path to inject current in the housing's earthing
system.

6 CONCLUSION
When a metallic telecommunication tower is struck by
lightning, most of the return stroke current flows through
the tower's metallic elements (legs and cross-arms), and
only a small fraction of the current flows through the
feeder cables. In the experiments carried out with a
standard radio base station complying with ITU-T Rec.56
[4], about 2% of the return stroke current flowed through
each feeder cable. This value is in agreement with the
theoretical value predicted by Rec.K.56, indicating that
the current distribution is governed by the inductances of
the conductors, instead of the resistances. The wave shape
of the feeder current is influenced by the front time of the
return stroke current, as a short front time (relative to the
tower's transit time) leads to a pronounced peak on the
feeder current, and this peak is almost absent in the case
of a long front time. Apparently, the variation of the
waveform of the feeder current is related to the reflections
of the stroke current at the extremities of the tower.

The authors wish to express their thankfulness to the

people that contributed to the activities of the
experimental site of Cachoeira Paulista, in special to the
INDELEC's team.

8 REFERENCES
[1] C. F. Barbosa, F. E. Nallin, S. Person, A. Zeddam, "The
effect
of
protection
procedures
applied
to
telecommunication lines on the lightning induced surges",
27th International Conference on Lightning Protection,
Versailles, 2004.
[2] C. F. Barbosa, F. E. Nallin, V. Cardinalli, N. Carnetta,
"Current distribution on power conductors of an installation
struck by rocket-triggered lightning", Proceedings of the
VIII International Symposium on Lightning Protection, pp.
82-86, So Paulo, Nov. 2005.
[3] C. F. Barbosa, F. E. Nallin, J. A. Rossi, J. Ribeiro, S. Person,
A. Zeddam, "Lightning induced surges on aerial
telecommunication lines with special reference to the effect
of earth resistivity", Proceedings of the VIII International
Symposium on Lightning Protection, pp. 71-75, So Paulo,
Nov. 2005.
[4] ITU-T Rec.K.56, "Protection of radio base stations against
lightning discharges", International Telecommunication
Union - ITU, Geneva, 2003.
[5] V. A. Rakov, "Rocket-triggered lightning experiments at
Camp Blanding, Florida", Proceedings of the V
International Symposium on Lightning Protection, pp. 373388, So Paulo, May 1999.
[6] V. A. Rakov, "Transient response of a tall object to
lightning", IEEE Trans. on Elec. Comp., pp.654-661,
Vol.43, N.4, Nov.2001.
[7] ETSI Guide EG 200 053, "Electromagnetic compatibility
and radio spectrum matters (ERM); Radio site engineering
for
radio
equipment
and
systems",
European
Telecommunications Standards Institute - ETSI, 2002.