DEVICE FOR ACTIVE LIGHTNING PROTECTION AND LIGHTNING ENERGY TAKE-OFF Russian patent published in 2006 - IPC H02H3/22 H02G13/00 

FIELD: power engineering.

SUBSTANCE: proposed device designed to protect power equipment against atmospheric surges and to generate electrical energy by alternative methods makes use of ground-insulated vertical current-conducting tube as lightning conductor that accommodates thin-walled dielectric cup inserted therein with its bottom down so that top part of tube is rising above cup edges. Inner surfaces of cup walls are covered with grounded conducting coating. Lighting conducting tube is electrically connected to one lead of transformer primary winding whose other lead is grounded. Primary winding inductance and capacitance organized by current-conducting tube, cup walls, and current-conducting coating form parallel oscillatory circuit. Lighting discharge through mentioned tube is initiated by expanded optical breakdown generated by Besselian beam of infrared pulsed laser. Configuration and direction of heating beam are formed by controllable dichroic mirror disposed within cup. This mirror functions at the same time as part of atmosphere optical scanning system designed to detect critical voltage gradient regions in lower part of thunderstorm clouds using well-known optical-location method. Energy picked off transformer secondary winding is used for feeding all systems of device, and some portion of this energy can be conveyed to users. This device incorporates provision for generating electrical energy by taking it off lightning discharge channels passed to conducting tube.

EFFECT: enhanced reliability and enlarged area of lightning protection; ability of electrical energy generation.

1 cl, 2 dwg