On Fri, 22 Jan 2021, John Edwards wrote:
Underground copper is probably more vulnerable than aerial to lightning.
Lightning strikes the ground, not the copper, but a voltage gets induced
in the copper due to the nearby electromagnetic charge - something that
doesn't happen in air because it's a fairly good insulator.
My experience has shown a different path to lightning damage.
When lightning strikes the ground, or a grounded object, that current
dissipates through the soil, which has a typical resistance of around 500
ohms per metre. If you have tens of thousands of amps flowing, then ohms
law tells us we have potentially huge potential differences over even
fairly short distances.
The copper cable has a very low resistance (by comparison).
If that cable happens to be radial (or oblique) to the current path from
the point of entry, the potential difference from one end of the cable to
the other will be hundreds to many thousands of volts.
Even the insulation of the cable may not be enough to save it, and any
components connected to it which happen to be physically close to the
ground will certainly break down.
This can happen at distances far further away than magnetic induction
alone would explain. It also explains (to me anyway) why I've seen burried
cables damaged part way along their length (where the greatest potential
difference has been).
Just my take on it.
R.
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