Computation of lightning electromagnetic pulses using the constrained interpolation profile method

•The CIP method has been first applied to analyzing lightning electromagnetic pulses (LEMPs).•It has been shown that the CIP computation is more stable than the corresponding FDTD computation.•A new engineering model of the lightning return stroke has been proposed.•LEMP waveforms computed with the CIP method for the proposed return-stroke model agree with the corresponding measured one.

In this paper, a numerical procedure for computing electric and magnetic fields in a three-dimensional space using the constrained interpolation profile (CIP) method is presented. Then, this method is applied to computing electric and magnetic fields, which are generated by a current wave propagating upward along a vertical lightning return-stroke channel. The lightning return-stroke channel is modeled by a phased-current-source array. The spatial and temporal distribution of the lightning return-stroke channel or phase-current-source array is represented by a new simple mathematical function of height, time and channel-base current.