Investigation of lightning strokes to UHV transmission lines by improved magnetic steel rod method

Lightning strike is still an important threaten to the safety operation of UHV transmission lines. As a traditional method for lightning accident and lightning current investigation, the magnetic steel rod method had been widely used in high voltage transmission lines. Lightning rods were often raised up on transmission line towers and then the magnetic steel rods were installed around it for the purpose to get an idea environment for the installation of magnetic steel rod and relatively accurate measurement of the lightning current. For the application of the magnetic steel rod method on UHV transmission lines, this paper proposed a practical and easy method of installing the magnetic steel rods directly on the transmission towers´ angle steel structures and fittings, which do not need to install lightning rods on the towers. Preliminary application results of the proposed method on the demonstrating and testing UHV transmission line is presented. The obtained datasets after one storm season was analyzed. It is shown that the proposed method is feasible.