Study on Experimental Simulation of Lightning Strokes

This study reports on the possibility and the limitation of the experimental simulation of lightning discharges. Discharges in long air gaps with impulse voltages were investigated with multiple techniques. The features of long gap discharges were compared with those of lightning discharges. It is impossible to simulate the whole process of lightning discharges by laboratory experiments with conventional lightning or switching impulses. The possibility of the simulation remains only in the final stage of lightning strokes to the ground. The scale factor was introduced to relate a laboratory spark with the final lightning stroke.