Lightning modeling and protection zone of conducting rod using Monte Carlo technique

Lightning strike is a harmful process and protection from lightning using conducting rods has been a subject of discussion for decades. In particular, there have been a lot of researches regarding the protection zone of a single conducting rod. This is important for the purpose of installing them to protect complex building structures. In the present article, the protection zone of a conducting rod has been obtained by Monte Carlo simulation method. The lightning process has been modeled for computer simulation. The authors have presented a new Monte Carlo modeling of lightning path. The origin of the downward stepped leader and the magnitude of peak current of the return stroke have appropriate random distributions. The obtained results are compared with already available experimental results present in various literatures. It is shown that this technique is reliable and in fair agreement with the established theories for finding protection zone of conducting rods.