Fast evaluation of the lightning electromagnetic field in the time domain with an adaptive piecewise approximation of channel base current

Abstract

Purpose

A fast algorithm is proposed to calculate the lightning electromagnetic field over a perfectly conducting earth surface.

Design/methodology/approach

The channel base current is approximated by a number of sub‐domain quadratic functions using the proposed adaptive sampling technique, and the derivative and integral of the channel base current with respect to time can be analytically expressed. With the help of these approximations, the ideal electromagnetic field of the lightning channel can be evaluated along the lightning channel with respect to the height.

Findings

The computational time can be greatly reduced using the proposed approach to evaluate the electromagnetic field of a lightning channel in the time domain.

Originality/value

The adaptive sampling technique is a general‐purposed approach, which can be potentially used in other applications to fit a function with the minimal number of intervals.

Citation

Lee, J., Zou, J., Li, M. and Chang, S. (2013), "Fast evaluation of the lightning electromagnetic field in the time domain with an adaptive piecewise approximation of channel base current", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 1030-1043. https://doi.org/10.1108/03321641311306051