Research and application of a new jet stream arc extinguishing gap lightning protection device

• A new kind of the lightning protection device.
• The arc quenching process is discussed.
• The results show that the device is effective.

After a lightning flashover, the resulted power frequency arc may cause the damages of insulators and the overhead line tripping. To solve this problem, a new kind of jet stream arc extinguishing gap lightning protection device (JSIGLPD) installed on the overhead transmission lines was developed. The proposed scheme can provide better distributed lightning protection to the overhead transmission lines. The JSIGLPD can limit the extreme over-voltage on insulators and avoid frequent tripping of circuit breakers. In arc extinguished test, the waveforms of voltage and current were observed with the high-speed camera and oscilloscope. In this paper, the characteristics of electric arc under jet streams are studied based on the chain arc model and shock wave theory, and the arc quenching process is discussed. The results of the arc-extinguishing experiment show that the JSIGLPD is a new type of efficient lightning protection method for overhead transmission lines.