When a stroke contacts a tower, a portion of the stroke current travels down the tower. The remainder passes
out along the OHGWs. The initial fractions along these two paths are determined by their relative surge
impedances. The tower current ßows to earth at the base of the tower through the tower footing impedance.
The resultant voltage drop, and the magnitude of the voltage wave reßected back up the tower, depend
directly on the value of the footing impedance encountered by the current. The voltage stress across the insulator
strings is the difference between the tower voltage and the instantaneous value of the voltage of the
phase conductors. A sufÞciently high voltage stress may result in backßashover. Since the tower voltage is
highly dependent on the footing impedance, it follows that footing impedance is an extremely important factor
in determining lightning performance.
The tower footing impedance depends on the area of the tower steel (or grounding conductor) in contact
with the earth, and on the resistivity of the earth. The latter is not constantÑit ßuctuates over time and is a
function of soil type, moisture content, temperature, current magnitude, and waveshape. Customarily, the
low-frequency, low-current value of footing resistance is used as an input in performance calculations (e.g.,
the FLASH program) because this value may be measured or computed easily. Surge reduction models of
varying complexity for footing ionization are then applied to the basic data to estimate the insulator voltage
magnitude under the lightning surge conditions.