Lightning Attachment Models and

Perfect Shielding Angle of Transmission Lines

Pantelis N. Mikropoulos' and Thomas E. Tsovilis
High Voltage Laboratory, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
Aristotle University ofThessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece,
lpnm@eng.auth.gr

Abstract- General relationships for the estimation of the

perfect shielding angle of overhead transmission lines have been
derived by performing shielding analysis on the basis of several
lightning attachment models, including a recently introduced
statistical one. The interdependence of perfect shielding angle,
transmission line height and minimum current causing flashover
of insulation is demonstrated as influenced by the lightning
attachment model employed in shielding analysis. There is a
great variability in perfect shielding angle among lightning
attachment models; this is demonstrated for 150 kV and 400 kV
lines of the Hellenic transmission system. The applicability of
lightning attachment models in perfect shielding angle
calculations is evaluated based on the shielding performance of
transmission lines; the IEEE Std 1243:1997 yields consistent
results with respect to the shielding performance of the lines.

Index Terms-- Direct stroke shielding, lightning, perfect

shielding angle, overhead transmission lines.
I.

INTRODUCTION

The shielding design of transmission lines against direct

lightning strokes to phase conductors, that is the appropriate
positioning of shield wires with respect to phase conductors,
can be achieved by implementing electrogeometric models
[1], representative of their application is the method
suggested by IEEE Standard 1243:1997 [2], which employ a
relation between striking distance and lightning peak current
in their calculations [3]-[12]. Alternatively, shielding design
may be realized by employing models based on more solid
physical ground of lightning attractiveness [13]-[21], called
hereafter, in accordance with Waters [22], generic models.
Recently, a statistical approach in shielding design has been
introduced [23]-[25] by implementing a lightning attachment
model derived from scale model experiments [26]-[28].
A perfect shielding is achieved when lightning strokes
possessing peak current greater than the minimum current
causing flashover of insulation are intercepted. Apparently,
some of the less intense strokes may not be intercepted by the
shield wires and strike to phase conductors, however these are
not expected to cause flashover. In practice, an effective
shielding of transmission lines against direct lightning strokes
to phase conductors is realized based on an acceptable
shielding failure flashover rate.
The present study provides general relationships for the
estimation of the perfect shielding angle of transmission lines,
which have been derived by performing shielding analysis on
the basis of electrogeometric, generic and the recently

proposed statistical model. The interdependence of perfect

shielding angle, transmission line height and minimum
current causing flashover of insulation is demonstrated as
influenced by the lightning attachment model employed in
shielding analysis. Findings are discussed and further
elucidated through an application to typical 150 kV and
400 kV lines of the Hellenic transmission system. The
applicability of lightning attachment models in perfect
shielding angle calculations has been evaluated based on the
shielding performance of transmission lines.
II.

PERFECT SHIELDING ANGLE FORMULATION BASED ON

DIFFERENT LIGHTNING ATTACHMENT MODELS

A. Electrogeometric models
Electrogeometric models have historically been employed
in transmission line shielding providing acceptable protection
against direct lightning strokes to phase conductors and they
are still widely used [2]. Shielding analysis according to
electrogeometric models follows based on Fig.l. The striking
distance to conductors, S, is assumed to be related solely to
the prospective lightning peak current, I and can be associated
to striking distance to earth surface, D, by using a factor y as
B

S=AI =yD

(1)

where I is in kA, S, D are in meters and factors A, Band yare

given in Table I as proposed by different authors. For a
design lightning peak current equal to the minimum current
causing flashover of insulation, L, the latter can be calculated
based on the geometrical and electrical characteristics of the
transmission line [2], a descending lightning leader will strike
to the phase conductor when reaching the arc between M and
N; hence, a shielding failure width, W, is defmed (Fig. 1).
With decreasing shielding angle a, W decreases, thus there is
a critical shielding angle which corresponds to W = 0,
hereafter called perfect shielding angle, ape Geometrical
analysis similar to that given in [29] yields the following
expression, approximating well the perfect shielding angle

= sin- l

a
p

(1_r hm+hpJ
2AI:

(2)

where, factors A, B, yare given in Table I, Ie is in kA, and

h (m), hp (m) are defmed in Fig. 1.

978-0-947649-44-9/09/$26.00 2009 IEEE

C. Generic models
Following Eriksson's work, generic lightning attachment
models have been developed which also consider the
inception of the upward connecting discharge emerging from
the prospective struck object [14]-[21]. Thus, based on
different leader inception criteria, expressions of the attractive
radius of an object, R, defined as the longest lateral distance
from the object where lightning attachment occurs, have been
proposed in the general form

I'

~,

,
I

hm

I
I
I
I
I
I

hp

(5)

Fig. 1. Shielding analysis according to electrogeometric models. h m shield

wire height; hp phase conductor height; a shielding angle; S striking distance
to shield wire and phase conductor; D striking distance to earth surface;
W shielding failure width.

where R is in meters, I (kA) is the prospective lightning peak

current, h (m) is the struck object height and factors ~ E and
F are listed in Table II according to different authors.

TABLE I

TABLE II

FACTORS A, B AND )ITO BE USED IN(I)

FACTORS ?,E AND F TO BE USED IN(5)

Electrogeometric model
Wagner & Hileman [3]

Young et al. [4]

)I

14.2

0.42

I
Iforh <18m

Generic model
Rizk [I5]

0.32

Armstrong & Whitehead [5] 6.72

Brown & Whitehead [6] 7.1
Love [7] 10

0.80
0.75

l.ll

0.65

I
I

0.45
0.67

0.69
0.67

0.20

0.67

Petrov et al. [19]' 0.47

S. Ait-Amar & Berger [21]
3
using as h in (5) the object height plus 15 m.

~forh >18m

27)1

?
1.57

462-h

h: shield wire height

Whitehead [8]

9.4

0.67

l.ll

liP'
8
0.65
10 0.65
liP"
p = 0.64 for UHV lines, 0.8 for EHV lines, and I for other hnes
'p = 0.36+0.17In(43-h) for h < 40 rn, p = 0.55 for h > 40 m where h is
the phase conductor height

Anderson [Ill and IEEE WG [121

IEEE Std 1243 [2]

B. Eriksson's model
Eriksson [13], proposed a modified electrogeometric model
by introducing the attractive radius in shielding design,
defmed as the "capture" radius at which the upward leader
initiated at the struck object intercepts the downward
lightning leader. Attractive radius, R, is given as
R = 0.67ho.6 I.74

Following a shielding analysis similar to that of Rizk [15],

according to Fig. 2 a shielding failure will occur when the
descending lightning leader enters the shielding failure width
W, which is given as
(6)
Thus, for a design lightning peak current equal to the
minimum current causing flashover of insulation L; the
perfect shielding angle, corresponding to W = 0, is given with
the aid of(5) and (6) as

(7)

(3)

where R is in meters, h (m) is the struck object height and I

(kA) is the prospective lightning peak current. Eriksson,
performing a shielding analysis similar to that of the
electrogeometric models, used, instead of S in Fig. I, the
attractive radius to draw arcs from the shield wire and phase
conductor up to the phase conductor height. Based on
geometrical analysis similar to that given in [29], the perfect
shielding angle can be expressed as

(4)

where hm (m) and hp (m) are defined in Fig.l, and Rm (m),

Rp (m) are calculated from (3) for I = L;

where factors ~, E, and F are given in Table II, Ie is in kA,

and h (m) and hp (m) are defmed in Fig. 2. It must be
mentioned that models [19] and [21] do not refer to the
transmission line geometry; however, employing these
models in perfect shielding angle calculations may provide
useful information concerning their applicability.

D. Statistical model
Recently, investigations on the interception probability of
an air terminal through scale model experiments made
possible the formulation of distributions for striking distance
and interception radius [27], and, thus, a statistical approach
in shielding design has been proposed in [24]. Interception
radius is considered as statistical quantity with a mean value,
referring to 50% interception probability , called critical
interception radius, Rei> and a standard deviation a. It is given
with reference the striking distance to earth surface as

Adopting from [7] the values of 10 and 0.65 for factors A' and
B', respectively and by using the value of CI for negative
lightning according to Table III, equation (11) becomes

- -0- - :..=- - '"

L>

: a ""o---.-----"-i---l~
I
I
I
I

ap-tan

I
I
I
I
I

Fig. 2. Shielding analysis according to generic models . a shielding angle; h m,

hp height of shield wire and phase conductor, respectively ; Rm, Rp attractive
radius of shield wire and phase conductor, respectively; W shielding failure
width; LlR horizontal separation distance between shield wire and phase
conductor .

(8)

-I

TABLE III
COEFFICIENTS C], Cz AND EXPRESSION OF a TO BE USED IN (8)

Positive Lightning

0.235

0.90

1.9(h/DYO.7S

Negative Lightning

0.272

1.24 5.0{h/ D

A3

Equation (8) can be used for shielding analysis by using a

known relation between striking distance to earth surface, D,
and lightning peak current, I, commonly expressed as

D = A'IB' . Thus, based on Fig. 2 and by using the critical

interception radii of shield wire and phase conductor as
calculated from (8), the shielding failure width W at critical
interception is
(9)

()

l1m-hp

(12)

Equation (12) refers to critical interception and is used

hereafter for perfect shielding angle calculations according to
the statistical model. It is important to note that for a given
transmission line geometry the interception radii Rm and Rp
are statistical quantities; they vary, besides lightning peak
current, with interception probability according to (8).
Therefore also the shielding failure width, as given by (6), is
accordingly statistically distributed indicating, thus, a non
deterministic value for the perfect shielding angle.
III.

where Rei is in meters, h (m) is the struck object height and

D (m) is the striking distance to earth surface. The
coefficients CI and Cz, and (J in formula form are given in
Table III [27].

[2.72I~.65ln(11m/ hp )-0.0I zh1,;3 ]

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig. 3 shows the variation of the perfect shielding angle, ap ,

with shield wire height, as calculated by employing the
lightning attachment models described in Section II. It is
obvious that there is a great variability in ap among models;
however, all models are consistent in predicting a smaller ap
with increasing shield wire height and decreasing minimum
current causing flashover of insulation, L: Considering that
the curves in Fig. 3 were obtained for a fixed ratio of hlhm
and that Ie is directly related to the basic insulation level of
the transmission line, it can be deduced that all models are
consistent in predicting a smaller perfect shielding angle with
increasing transmission line height and decreasing insulation
level of the line. However, the effect of transmission line
height is much more pronounced for the electrogeometric
models; the latter, thus also IEEE Std [2], generally yield
smaller ap , even negative values for relatively high lines
contrary to the generic, Eriksson's and statistical model
yielding positive ap values. The variability of perfect
shielding angle among lightning attachment models is also
obvious in Table IV referring to typical 150 kV and 400 kV

Hence, the perfect shielding angle at critical interception is

given as

20

where h (m) and hp (m) are defmed in Fig. 2 and CI is given

in Table III. By considering also the neighboring effects on
the shield wire interception radius of the phase conductor
[25], [28], equation (10) becomes

25

20
25
Shield wire height (m )

Shieldwire heit:lht(m)
40

40

~20

~~20
~
~_

30

I': [.':[ '>.'.~:~

-'-~. ~ ~'-~".~ ::::!i~' I':

hpIh",-O .7S,I . -SkA

"' 10

-;

~ '10

~-20

a..

I~

Eled rogeoll19lnc rrode ls

-30

' ...

_ Slahstica lmodal

Fsl

...

- - IEEE Std 1243

16j

"', 2
~

Shield wire height (m)

45

[,s'= : : : - - - ~,~~ ::::

>., _.:~~~ ~:.~3.t.

~-20

~~O~~~I;':~~

-30

- Stallst ical rrode l

a..

-,

<,,

- -IEEEStd1243

20

' -,

' .
~

Shield wire height (m)

Fig. 3. Perfect shielding angle as a function of shield wire height.

lines of the Hellenic transmission system. In Table IV, the

calculated values of ap correspond to line geometries at the
tower and average height along the line; the basic line
parameters are given in Table V. All models yield greater ap
at average transmission line height than at the tower as a
result of the sag of the shield wire and phase conductor; this
also indicates that ap varies along the length of the line. The
electrogeometric models yield generally negative ap values,
which deviate considerably from the actual shielding angles
of the studied transmission lines. However, in practice an
effective shielding of transmission lines is realized based on
an acceptable shielding failure flashover rate, SFFOR. For a
given line geometry SFFOR (flashovers/1 OOlan/year),
normally used together with backflashover rate to estimate
the expected outage rate of a transmission line, is given as
L VSF

SFFOR = O.2Ng

W(I)j(I)dI

(13)

r.

where Ng (flashes/kmvyear) is the ground flash density,JtI) is

the probability density function of the stroke current
amplitude distribution, W (m) is the shielding failure width
and I MSF (kA) is the maximum shielding failure current. For a
design value of SFFOR = 0.05 flashovers/lOOkm/year,
commonly used in shielding design and by assuming Ng = 5
flashes/kmvyear, the effective shielding angles for the studied
overhead lines are listed in Table VI. These calculations refer
to average line height, employ the JtI) distribution suggested
in [30] and values for Ie and I MSF found according to [2] and
[31], respectively, and consider the variation of W with the
lightning attachment model used for shielding analysis .
TABLEIV
PERFECT SHIELDING ANGLE OF TYPICAL 150kV AND 400 kV OVERHEAD
LINES OF THE HELLENIC TRANSMISSION SYSTEM
150kV
400kV
Average
Average
Tower
Tower
height
Liahtninz attachmentmodel
heizht
Wagner & Hileman 3
-12
-I
-12
-4
Young et al. 4
16
23
12
18
-35
-21
-15
-7
Armstrong& Whitehead 5
-36
-23
-18
-10
Brown & Whitehead 6
Love 7
-14
-3
-3
4
Whitehead 8
-16
-5
-5
3
-32
-18
-31
-22
Anderson [J 1l and IEEE WG 12
-24
-10
-22
-9
IEEE Std 1243 2
Eriksson 13
2
15
14
6
Rizk 15
15
17
21
22
Petrovet al. 19
12
12
18
18
Ait-Amar & Berger 21
5
6
7
7
Mikronoulos & Tsovilis 25
0
7
3
8
TABLEV
PARAMETERS OF TYPICAL 150kV AND 400 kV OVERHEAD LINES OF THE
HELLENIC TRANSMISSION SYSTEM
Upper phase Shielding Shieldingangle
conductor angle at
at average
height
tower
height
(Deg)
(Deg)
(m)
(m)
150
4
33.0
27.8
31
23
400
45.1
36.5
19
16
8
Sag of shIeldWIre and phase conductor. 5.5 m and 8.6 m, respectIvely
Operating
t,
voltage
(kA)
(kV)

Shield
wire
height

TABLE VI
EFFECTIVE SHIELDING ANGLE OF TYPICAL 150kV AND 400 kV OVERHEAD
LINES OF THE HELLENICTRANSMISSION SYSTEM
Lightningattachmentmodel 150kV 400kV
Wagner & Hileman 3
21
13
Young et al. 4
34
26
12
Armstrong & Whitehead 5
17
Brown & Whitehead 6
11
16
Love 7
24
18
Whitehead 8
23
18
Anderson fill and IEEE WG 12
18
6
IEEE Std 1243 2
18
9
7
15
Eriksson 13
Rizk 15
29
30
Petrovet al. 19
24
25
Ait-Amar & Berger 21
24
12
Mikropoulos & Tsovilis 25
19
15

From Tables IV and VI it can be deduced that the effective

shielding angle shows less variability than perfect shielding
angle among models . It is important to note that for SFFOR =
0.05 flashovers/lOOkm/year the electrogeometric models, in
agreement with the other models, yield positive shielding
angles agreeing with the actual shielding angles (Table V).
The applicability of a lightning attachment model in perfect
shielding angle calculations can be evaluated based on the
shielding performance of transmission lines; this is illustrated
in Fig. 4. Lines with actual shielding angles greater than the
corresponding calculated perfect shielding angle should
experience shielding failures, whereas lines with actual
shielding angles smaller than the corresponding calculated
perfect shielding angle should show superior shielding
performance. The shielding performance of the lines is
generally underestimated for Eriksson's model [13] (Fig. 4a)
and for the electrogeometric models [5] and [6], whereas
overestimated for Rizk 's [15] (Fig. 4b) and Young et al. [4]
models . The IEEE Std [2] (Fig . 4c), electrogeometric models
[3], [7] and [8] as well as the statistical model [25] (Fig. 4d)
yield generally consistent results with respect to shielding
performance of transmission lines, whereas inconsistency
have been found for the generic models [19] and [21].
50
(a) Eriksson [13)

." -rc
50
40

(c) IEEE SId 1243(2 )

...

"
'

Fig. 4. Perfect shielding angle versus actual shielding angle. Empty and solid
points depict lines showing superior shielding performance [5] and
experiencingshieldingfailures [32], respectively.

Finally, it must be mentioned that in the present analysis

subsequent strokes possessing current magnitudes bigger than
minimum current causing flashover of insulation have not
been considered in determining SFFOR of transmission lines.
IV.

CONCLUSIONS

General relationships for the estimation of the perfect

shielding angle of transmission lines have been derived by
performing shielding analysis on the basis of several lightning
attachment models. There is a great variability in perfect
shielding angle among lightning attachment models. The
effect of the transmission line height is much more
pronounced for the electrogeometric models; the latter, thus
also IEEE Standard 1243:1997, generally yield smaller
perfect shielding angles, even negative ones for relatively
high transmission lines contrary to the generic, Eriksson's
and statistical model yielding positive perfect shielding
angles. The effective shielding angle calculated by assuming
an acceptable shielding failure flashover rate is less variable
among lightning attachment models. These fmdings are
demonstrated through an application to typical 150 kV and
400 kV overhead lines of the Hellenic transmission system.
The applicability of lightning attachment models in perfect
shielding angle calculations has been evaluated based on the
shielding performance of transmission lines reported in
literature. Consistent results have been derived for the
statistical model and some electrogeometric models, as well
as for the IEEE Standard 1243:1997.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Th. E. Tsovilis wishes to thank the Research Committee of

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for the support provided
by a merit scholarship.
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