Lightning protection

Risk assessment and protection class categorisation as the basis for designing your lightning protection system. Does your company or home already have professional lightning protection?

Danger threatens without lightning conductors

Downward lightning strikes that hit a building without lightning protection regularly lead to dangerous direct strikes in buildings and systems, which in the worst case can cause life-threatening fires or, even if they occur at a greater distance, paralyse important supply and communication systems. Lightning currents generate electromagnetic pulse fields which, due to induction, create large surges of several thousand volts.

In addition to direct destruction, the energy load also reduces the service life of electronic components. Such scenarios can be avoided with lightning protection systems. If there is no adequate lightning protection, this can have far-reaching consequences. Protect your house, building or system now and take precautions with good lightning protection.

Lightning protection for hazard prevention

Against this background, a comprehensive, property and system-specific protection concept is essential, which takes both external lightning protection and internal lightning protection equally into account. This applies to both the public and private sectors, not to mention the industrial sector. Surge and lightning protection is extremely important in the environment of process engineering production plants in the context of explosion protection, as lightning represents a source of ignition, not least according to the German Industrial Safety Regulation. This can have dramatic consequences.

Planning your lightning protection system

The most important first step in lightning protection, which our competent engineering experts take on as part of the planning of your lightning protection system, is the personal assessment of your structure. Based on tis, we then carry out a risk assessment of the expected lightning current distribution in the event of a strike in order to customise the system so that it can withstand the stresses of a strike. This risk assessment is the basis for classifying your property into one of four defined protection classes according to VDN, which contain specifications for the design, installation, testing and maintenance of the lightning protection system.

External lightning protection

Preventive measures for fire prevention and securing the building structure

The purpose of external lightning protection is to protect the building fabric from direct lightning strikes and the resulting potential fires. Installed interception systems intercept the lightning strike, conduct the lightning current safely to earth via a down conductor and distribute it in the ground with the help of a grounding system.

Interception systems
The function of the interception systems is to prevent uncontrolled direct impacts. Special care is therefore taken when positioning poles, wires, ropes and meshed ladders. We design these individually to suit the structure to be protected and the respective roof construction. We use three methods for planning: the lightning sphere, mesh and protective angle method. The architecture and external building structures can pose a particular challenge when designing your lightning protection system.

Discharge system
The down conductor is an electrically conductive connection that safely discharges the captured lightning current to the earth-termination system without causing damage to the building. The expected loads at the installation site are decisive for the design of the down conductor system and the discharge capacity. We calculate the number of down conductors according to the lightning protection class, the external roof perimeter and by precisely calculating the separation distances.

In order to implement the structure in a cost-optimised manner, the existing structural components that can take on the function of interception and discharge lines are taken into account as far as possible.

Grounding system

Internal lightning protection

Prevention of surges in electrical and electronic systems

The function of internal lightning protection is to prevent dangerous surges within a structure and to protect electrical systems and communication equipment within the building from damage. This is caused by energy transfer due to lightning currents as a direct strike or inductive transfer to supply lines leading into the building.

A key measure that we implement as part of internal lightning protection is consistent lightning protection equipotential bonding, which equalises impermissible potential differences with effects on the electrical consumer systems in the building.

This takes into account both the conductive parts outside the building structure and the incoming cables. Passive elements such as metal water, gas and heating pipes are connected directly to the equipotential bonding. The energy and IT systems within the building or plant that are under operating voltage are integrated into the potential equalisation using surge protective devices (SPDs).

From surge protection plugs for your TV to complex power supplies, our planning engineers can design efficient protection.

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