| Determining the protection zone of Franklin rod is crucial to the effective design of lightning protection systems. Existing models employ purely mathematical conjectures and have not considered the polarity of lightning strokes.; This work presents the laboratory study of Franklin rod impact on striking distance. Two equations have been established so as to find the protection zone of the Franklin rod. Based on the mathematical solution, an elliptical model is also developed to calculate the protection zone. Compared to the laboratory test results, the calculated protection zone under negative lightning strokes is validated with the equivalent measured values; while for positive lightning strokes, a modification was made to validate the calculated results with the measured results. |
