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Total Solution to Earthing & Lightning Protection |
9AKK106354A3360
Introduction
External lightning protection
Ensuring effective external protection
Lightning can cause fires, explosions, chemical release or
mechanical disruption within or around a structure.
Step and touch voltages generated from a lightning strike can
cause injury, or even loss of life.
Critical services, such as mains power and telecoms etc., can
be heavily disrupted, resulting in major potential losses. Offices
risk physical damage to servers and PCs, as well as loss of key
data; factories risk machinery downtime and repair costs along
with health and safety hazard to personnel.
The Furse Total Solution takes account of all the potential
risks from a direct lightning strike, and incorporates all
the elements necessary to deliver full and effective
external lightning protection, including:
–– Structural lightning protection
–– Earth termination
–– Equipotential bonding of metallic parts
Structural lightning protection
A structural lightning protection system is designed to protect
the fabric of a structure and the lives of people inside by
channelling lightning strike energy in a safe and controlled
manner to the earth termination network.
Earth termination
The earth termination network connects to the down conductor
network at the base of the building, and is the means through which
the lightning current is dissipated to the general mass of earth.
Lightning equipotential bonding
Equipotential bonding is designed to ensure the risk of dangerous
sparking or flashover occurring within a structure is avoided. It
ensures no metallic part would be at a different potential to
others in the event of lightning currents flowing in the system.
Earthing components must offer both a low resistance to earth
and have excellent corrosion resistance, as they will be buried
in the ground for many years.
Direct bonding can be achieved through earthing components,
or for service lines with ‘live cores’, through installation of
Furse ESP lightning current/equipotential bonding SPDs.
The function of an external lightning protection system is to intercept, conduct and
disperse a lightning strike safely to earth.