The effect of secondary scattering on the induced current in a long wire over an imperfect ground from an incident EMP

The effect of secondary scattering that is produced by the induced current in an infinitely long, finitely conducting wire over a plane, finitely conducting earth from an incident electromagnetic pulse is investigated. This is accomplished by finding the field of a Hertzian dipole over the earth and identifying the part that is due to secondary scattering. Frequency-domain results for the overall induced current require that certain infinite integrals be numerically evaluated. Fourier inversion to the time domain in turn requires the numerical evaluation of another infinite integral. When the results are compared to those obtained when secondary scattering is ignored, it is found that secondary scattering slightly increases the current for the case of broadside incidence and reduces it for the case of grazing incidence by as much as two orders of magnitude. Peak currents are much smaller than previously thought. These general results hold for all of the earth parameters that were used in the study