Study on a Corona Streamer Observed in a Laser-Triggered Lightning Simulator

摘要

The laser-triggered lightning has not been in the practical use for protection of lightning yet. It is considered that one of the reasons that prevent laser from triggering lightning is the shield effect of corona streamer at the tip of the tower under a thundercloud. A corona streamer was studied by experiments by using a lightning simulator and a high-power CO_2 laser. Discharge induction experiments were performed between a plate and a rod on a plate electrode configuration with a gap length of 1 m using the CO_2 laser and a DC voltage generator. It was found that the source of the corona streamer was pulsating current released from the rod electrode on the plane electrode. The current is a series of pulses with a height of about 10mA and with a pulse width of about 100 ns. It was estimated that the amount of the space charge of the corona streamer is about 3 × 10~(-9) C.