Potential Use of Lightning Risk Assessment Tool Generating Report Within Few Minutes

High volume of energy instantaneously released around 4.5km to 7.5km above the ground that occurs frequently cause huge amount of property damage. Lightning find a conductive path to the ground to complete the circuit effecting human lives, historic buildings/ monuments, industries, residential buildings, etc. Due to resultant damages from lightning strike, cause system downtime experienced by businesses. Hence, the lightning risk assessment plays an important role in understanding the vulnerability to structures from lightning strike.

Protection segment is needed to be provided against this potential threat in order to prevent property damage and loss of life especially if the structure/ building is located in a high lightning density area. The technology widely adopted as per the international standard IS/IEC 62305 & National Building Code (NBC 2016) is the latest revision clearly defining the need of lightning protection system and methodology of risk assessment which assist safety professionals with the installation of components - Air terminal network, down conductor, bonding techniques, grounding methods and practices.

We at JMV are up with finest strategies and tools making the risk assessment incredibly easy task for common man.

Do it yourself - Risk analysis and control measures for risk components as per IS/IEC 62305-2.
As per the standard, we use flexible design tools to assess all losses and evaluate the lightning strike density of the structure to be protected further determining the degree of safety required along with associated risk factors. When correlated, if the accessed lightning strike frequency is greater than the permissible risk level then an external protection system as per the level of protection has to be installed.

Software calculations - Utilizing the risk assessment software, we can determine the nature of protection required with which the entire structure can be sufficiently protected with proper system designing according to the below methods:

• Protection angle method
• Mesh method
• Rolling sphere method

This user friendly software determines the nature of LPS system and the number of air termination in the area to be protected. It generates a comprehensive and compliant test report which graphically depicts the maximum distance of any point on the roof between the consecutive horizontal conductor/ air terminal decided as per nature of LPS system and the horizontal protective conductors connecting the air terminals forming mesh. This is a tedious process when done manually but when done online, it will accurately provide a report making things a little easier to understand.

If your facility has old lightning protection equipment in place, if you are thinking of building a new facility or already own one, then you must conduct a lightning risk assessment.
Demonstrating the installation of system and its components as per standard guidelines- 
Conventional Air termination or lightning arrester network is mounted on the peak point of the building to be protected as per the design and is electrically linked to the ground via the down conductor.

During the event of lightning, if the discharged energy happens to approach the protected zone, it shall directly hit the air terminal which is the capture system which further conduct it safely to the ground. From the air terminal, high voltage spark paves its path to the ground through the down conductor made of superior conductors for swift dissipation of electric charge. The last level of this protection methodology which is Maintenance free earthing system to dissipate the lightning current is essential for the proper system functioning.

This pioneering age old method is still in practice owing to its reliability and so, it is recommended to go assess the lightning risk assessment software. Do the assessment all by yourself by login and registering in this user friendly software so as to get a clear idea on what lightning protection equipment and service is required for your property.