ISTANBUL WAS OVERWHELMED BY LIGHTNING

Istanbul Has Surrendered to Lightning; Lightning impulses have started to descend into city centers, especially in the last month, causing serious damage. Many sites and residences in Istanbul have suffered serious damage as a result of lightning impulses. Istanbul in general, especially Etiler, Beşiktaş, Çekmeköy, Tarabya, Sarıyer, and the Bosphorus Line, has surrendered to lightning strikes. Istanbul in general, exposed to thousands of impulses in just the last month, has shown us that the climates and the stormy day map have changed significantly, and the data shows that Lightning will appear as a very serious problem in the coming years, threatening people’s life and property safety.

The biggest factor in the increase of lightning to this degree is the formation of serious temperature differences between the ground and the sky. As a result of damaging nature while ensuring urbanization, nature continues to remind us of its power. The lightning impulse occurs in 25 ns and has an impulse characteristic exceeding 100kA. And it poses a serious risk with the possibility of falling at any point at any moment.

Recent lightning events have revealed the result that especially residences and housing estates are not protected correctly and have major technical deficiencies. In the surveys we conducted, it shows that while sites think they are protected, we actually ensure that lightning causes more damage. Unfortunately, in our country, people try to protect themselves from lightning or think they are protected with hearsay information far from science. However, preventing lightning from causing damage is quite easy when we provide scientific foundations. Please let’s take the right protection measures without moving away from science to sit comfortably in our homes in rainy weather.

So How Will We Be Protected From Lightning!

Proceeding within the scope of the IEC 62305 standard appears as the most correct way. As we always state, just installing a lightning rod creates serious damages rather than creating a protection measure against lightning. For example, your cameras, switches, TVs in your homes, and satellite systems burn out. You cannot prevent them from burning just by using a lightning rod. We have to provide LV Surge Arrester system installation for the protection of electrical systems. We must prevent the effect of the lightning impulse from damaging electrical systems by using energy protection in the Main transformer, UPS, Generator, Building entrance and floor panels, and Type 3 protections in camera, switch, and Telecom lines. At this point, the correct solution is to perform cascaded protection and take the correct protection measures as a result of engineering work. Expert engineers need to conduct a survey throughout the facility to select the right products. As Yılkomer, our Raycap brand, which we represent, has 2400 different surge arrester systems. We must protect facilities with the correct application by selecting the correct surge arrester according to the system feature. LV Surge Arrester systems are referred to as Internal Lightning Protection Systems. Remember, Lightning can burn all devices in a circle with a radius of 2km from the point where it strikes. Lightning striking the environment, not you, causes your devices to burn.

Let’s come to the external lightning protection system. We must definitely install an external lightning protection system in our facility against the fire and physical effects of lightning. However, this external lightning protection system should be designed with passive air terminals rather than active lightning rods. Active systems cause more lightning strikes by ionizing. If you don’t have a surge arrester, your damage increases. Passive systems, on the other hand, activate when lightning is about to strike. International norms tell us this. The external lightning protection system down conductor should not descend bare. If it descends, it should descend at the separation distance ‘s’. Most correctly, we need to discharge the impulse to the ground with special insulated down conductors resistant to values of 100 kiloamperes and above. The external lightning protection system and the main system must definitely be equipotential.

You can protect your facility from lightning by paying attention to this and many similar technical details. However, unfortunately, these are not paid attention to. And serious damages occur in a possible lightning impulse.

By taking advantage of the Lightning Protection Center’s free survey campaign, you can have your facility designed and take your facility under protection with the right protection measures against lightning. Instead of Surrendering to Lightning as in recent months, it is in our hands to prefer to watch this show of nature by sipping your tea like European people;

You can fill out the form below to apply for our free survey campaign.