RU2525842C1 - Method of initiating lightning discharges - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: blasting operations.

SUBSTANCE: method of initiating lightning discharges comprises a remote definition of the pre-discharge state and coordinates of storm cells, as well as creation of a plasma conductive channel. At that the plasma conductive channel is created by synchronised blasting of series of artillery ammunition of plasma-optical action. The blasting points are located so that the ionised fields arising in the atmospheric air at triggering of the ammunition of plasma-optical action are arranged to overlap in the chain in the direction from the storm cell to the ground surface or to neighbouring storm cell. The overlapping of the ionised fields in the atmospheric air from triggering of the ammunition of plasma-optical action can be performed by changing the direction of flight of each subsequent ammunition in series in relation to the previous one. The overlapping of the ionised fields in the atmospheric air from triggering of the ammunition of plasma-optical action can also be performed by changing the triggering time of each subsequent ammunition in series in relation to the previous one. In addition, the overlapping of the ionised fields in the atmospheric air from triggering of the ammunition of plasma-optical action can be performed by simultaneous changing the direction of flight of each subsequent ammunition in series in relation to the previous one and the change in the triggering time of each subsequent ammunition in series in relation to the previous one.

EFFECT: simplification, cheapening, increased reliability and capability enhancement of use of the method of initiation of lightning discharges.

4 cl, 3 dwg

Description

Technical field

The invention relates to methods for the controlled initiation of lightning discharges, which can be used for lightning protection of important objects from lightning electricity and for artificial influences on cloud processes in order to regulate their electrical activity. Lightning protection is carried out by diverting the lightning current to a safe place for the protected object.

State of the art

A known method of initiating lightning strikes using a metal lightning rod made of a rod, cable or mesh [Instructions for lightning protection devices of buildings, structures and industrial communications. Moscow, MPEI Publishing House, 2004]. The lightning rod is installed at a height exceeding the protected object, and concentrates the earth's potential at the point of suspension. Under the influence of an electric field of an approaching thundercloud, the density of positive charges induced on the earth increases significantly. The electrostatic field at the tip increases, exceeding the ionization threshold of air. The electric field of a thunderstorm cell is concentrated in the region closest to the lightning rod, and streamers are formed from it, forming the leader of the lightning discharge. The discharge of a lightning cell is made through a lightning rod. Lightning current dissipates in the ground in the vicinity of the lightning rod installation. The radius of the protection zone is comparable to the height of the lightning rod.

The disadvantages of this method are the low probability of a lightning strike in the lightning conductor and a low degree of protection of the object. The fact is that the danger of the effect of the emf of magnetic induction of lightning on low-potential and explosive communications makes it take lightning to the ground at a considerable distance from the object, and this significantly reduces the degree of lightning protection of the object.

A known method of initiating lightning strikes using missiles launched from the surface of the earth. They carry a copper conductor [PREVECTRON®: Field Testing with Real Lightning, www.indelec.com]. Solid rocket engines are also used [The International Center for Lightning Research and Testing (ICLRT) at Camp Blanding, Florida]. Calcium chloride and cesium salts are added to the fuel. Burning fuel leaves behind a flying rocket a trace of these salts, which, coming into contact with air moisture, form a conductive channel. Lightning follows the path of least electrical resistance, i.e. on the formed channel.

The initiation procedure consists in waiting for a suitable moment during a thunderstorm, controlled by a field strength meter, and launching a rocket towards a thunderstorm cloud cell. The electrostatic field of the earth is concentrated through a conductor or a conductive channel. Descending from a thunderstorm cell and oncoming, radiated by a rocket, leaders grow towards each other. Their union closes a downward lightning through a conductive object to the ground. A conductor attached to a rocket, when a leader current passes through it, evaporates, forming a conductive channel in the air. A “short circuit” to the ground occurs along the created channel, and the descending leader freely passes down the conductor to the ground. Lightning discharge occurs through the rod masts when the rocket reaches a height of ~ 50-300 m.

The disadvantages of this method are: cumbersomeness, high cost associated with a limited radius of action of the rocket and tight binding of the launch point to the rod mast of the lightning rod; low speed with repeated calls of lightning; breakage of the attached conductor at launch and its effect on the flight path of the rocket; inability to initiate intercloud discharges; destruction of the integrity of the conductive channel (due to its small cross section) by atmospheric turbulence.

There is also known a method of initiating lightning discharges, including remote determination of the pre-discharge state and coordinates of lightning cells, and the creation of a plasma conducting channel by exposure to atmospheric air by laser radiation [Creating continuous laser sparks for solution. V.V. Apollonov, L.M. Vasilyak, S.Yu. Kazantsev, I.G. Kononov, D.N. Polyakov, A.V. Sayfulin, K.N. Firsov. Internet application. Special issue “Defense order” N-December 17, 2007].

In a known method, an infrared (IR) laser is used to initiate lightning. A laser beam is passed near the top of a tall tower. The moment of the laser shot is selected according to the electric field sensor built into the laser device trigger system, because the cloud must mature and be ready to emit downward lightning so that it is intercepted by a leader rising from the tower. The radiation is focused by a telephoto mirror or lens. In a heated beam of an IR laser, air reduces its density, which contributes to its ionization and the formation of a conducting channel along which an electric discharge develops more easily. When the duration of the main part of the pulse is ~ 50 ns, the threshold intensity for the breakdown containing air aerosols is 107–108 W cm ^–2 . Formed by the top of a tall tower, an ascending leader intercepts lightning.

The main disadvantage of this method is the high energy consumption, since all the gas in the channel is heated. The laser powers required for this are elusive.

There is also known a method of initiating lightning discharges, including remote determination of the pre-discharge state and coordinates of lightning cells, and the creation of a plasma conductive channel by exposure to atmospheric air with ultraviolet (UV) laser radiation, adopted as a prototype [E. Bazelyan, Yu.L. Raizer The mechanism of attraction of lightning and the problem of laser control of lightning // UFN. 2000. T. 170. No. 7, S.753]. In accordance with a known method, a plasma channel is created in a free atmosphere using a UV laser so that leaders initiating the formation of lightning are excited from its ends. The condition for excitation of viable leaders from a plasma conductor is the same as from a grounded structure. It determines the minimum length of the formed conductor.

Photoionization is carried out with an extremely short but very powerful pulse of ultraviolet radiation. A longer pulse of less hard visible radiation is added to it, which frees the electrons from negative ions that are rapidly formed during the UV pulse. A conductive channel is created in the free atmosphere, which is polarized in the field of a thundercloud and leaders are excited from its ends.

The disadvantages of laser methods are the bulkiness and complexity of the equipment, significant energy consumption and implementation cost, the impossibility of forming extended conductive channels near a thundercloud, where the electric field strengths are maximum and the conditions of nucleation of leader channels most favorable from an energy point of view.

A common drawback of both rocket and laser methods for artificial lightning is that the plasma conducting channel they form has a small cross section. Any inhomogeneity of the atmosphere — inhomogeneities in the density, type and concentration of aerosol, small-scale turbulence, etc. in the region of the conducting channel — violates the integrity of the channel and its conductivity, and, consequently, its ability to polarize and conductor of the channel leader.

Disclosure of invention

The objective of the invention of the method is to simplify, reduce the cost, increase reliability and expand the application of the method of initiating lightning discharges.

The problem is solved as follows. A method of initiating lightning discharges includes remote determination of the pre-discharge state and coordinates of lightning cells, as well as the creation of a plasma conductive channel. In this case, the plasma conductive channel is created by synchronized detonation of a series of artillery ammunition of plasma-optical action. Explosion points are positioned so that the ionized regions that occur in atmospheric air when plasma-optical munitions are triggered are overlapped along the chain in the direction from the thunderstorm cell to the earth's surface or to an adjacent thunderstorm cell.

The overlapping of ionized areas in atmospheric air from the operation of ammunition of plasma-optical action can be carried out by changing the direction of flight of each subsequent ammunition in a series relative to the previous one.

The overlapping of ionized areas in atmospheric air from the operation of ammunition of plasma-optical action can also be carried out by changing the response time of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one.

In addition, the overlapping of ionized areas in atmospheric air from the operation of ammunition of plasma-optical action can be carried out by simultaneously changing the direction of flight of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one and changing the response time of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one.

List of figures

The proposed method for initiating lightning discharges is illustrated by graphic materials, where Fig. 1 shows an implementation diagram for ensuring that the ionized areas overlap by changing the flight direction of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one, and Fig. 2 is an implementation diagram for ensuring that the ionized regions overlap with changing the response time of each subsequent ammunition in a series relative to the previous one, FIG. 3 is a diagram of an implementation with overlapping ionized regions of one a change in the direction of flight and the response time of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one.

The implementation of the invention

To implement the proposed method for initiating lightning discharges, the following technical means are required.

1) Lightning reconnaissance station, providing remote determination of the pre-discharge state and coordinates of thunderstorm cells.

2) A microprocessor-based computing unit that processes data from a lightning reconnaissance station in real time and issues target designation instructions.

3) Several masts of lightning rods of standard design, located at a safe distance from the protected object.

4) One or more rapid-firing artillery mounts.

The rate of fire of a modern 30 mm automatic gun is 6000 rds / min (respectively, a firing frequency of 100 Hz), the speed of a 30 mm projectile upon exiting the barrel is ν ₀ ≈ 500 ... 1000 m / s, i.e. the shells follow each other at a distance of 5 ... 10 m. The gun has a device for transmitting the fuse response time to the projectile inside the barrel by the inductive method. The gun is equipped with program-controlled drives that provide barrel movement in azimuth and elevation angle at a given speed.

5) Plasma-optical ammunition (AML) (such ammunition is carried out, for example, on the basis of an explosive plasma-vortex radiation source described in the Journal of Technical Physics (ZhTF), 2010, vol. 80, No. 11, p. 87-94) .

The principle of operation of the LARP is based on the use of the effects of shock braking and vortex formation during pulsed injection of highly enthalpy plasma jets into atmospheric air. Plasma jets with the required thermodynamic parameters and chemical composition are formed using the cumulative charge of a blasting explosive (BB). With remote detonation of LARP in atmospheric air, a long-lived plasma-vortex formation is formed in the form of a spheroid with a characteristic diameter of the order of several meters (depending on the mass of the explosive charge) and a powerful high-energy pulse of broadband electromagnetic radiation of the optical spectrum range (0.19 ... 14 μm) is generated. The brightness of such radiation is many times higher than the brightness of solar radiation and corresponds to radiation temperatures of 15,000 ... 20,000 K, the front of increasing radiation intensity falls on the microsecond duration range. In the fast phase of the LARP response process - the phase of shock braking of a high-speed jet in air - more than 50% of the radiated energy falls on the ultraviolet region of the spectrum, whose short-wavelength quanta cause photoionization of the surrounding air. In the process of further deceleration of the jet in the air (slow phase), a plasma toroidal vortex is formed with characteristic plasma temperatures of 3000 ... 5000 K. The lifetime of a plasma vortex in the air is tens and hundreds of milliseconds (up to 0.1 s). During this time, a sufficiently high electron concentration is maintained in the plasma vortex - 10 ¹² ... 10 ¹⁴ in cm ³ . The conversion efficiency of the chemical energy of a condensed explosive into the internal energy of a vortex and radiation reaches 20%.

Such AMLs can be adapted to all types of modern artillery mountings, including automatic guns with a high rate of fire (6000 rounds per minute or more). The delay time of detonation (or the distance at which detonation is carried out) is set by the built-in electronically programmed or pyrotechnic fuse-moderator.

There is experimental data on the study of the characteristics of prototype MPSUs of a caliber of 30 mm, confirming the above information (ZhTF, 2010, vol. 80, No. 11, p. 87-94).

To initiate lightning, it is necessary to create an ionized (conducting) channel several tens of meters long near a thunderstorm cloud cell towards the ground or a nearby thunderstorm cell of the same or another cloud so that viable leaders can be excited from its ends. The channel must be well conductive and have a diameter exceeding the characteristic size of small-scale atmospheric turbulence. The plasma of the formed channel quickly (in 10 ^-8 -10 ^-9 s) polarizes in the field of the thundercloud of the cloud, which contributes to the formation of lightning leaders from both ends of the channel.

The implementation of the proposed method for initiating lightning discharges will be clear from the following examples relating to lightning protection of objects.

Example 1: the overlapping of ionized areas in atmospheric air from the operation of ammunition of plasma-optical action is carried out by changing the direction of flight of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one (Fig. 1).

The lightning reconnaissance station 1 monitors the movement of a thundercloud 2 with a thunderstorm cell in the direction of the protected object 3 and controls the electric field strength at the level of the earth's surface. The angular coordinates of the lightning cell, the direction and speed of the cloud, the current distance to it are continuously supplied to the computing unit 4. These data are processed by the computing unit 4, taking into account the coordinates of the positioning position of the fast-firing artillery mount 5 and the lightning rod mast 6. Calculation results in the form of azimuth targeting commands and the elevation angle, according to the time of operation of the munition fuse and the angular velocity of rotation of the barrel are fed to the actuators of the rapid-firing artillery mount 5.

When the surface electric field reaches a threshold value (for example, 200 V / cm), the lightning reconnaissance station 1 issues a command to shoot a series of plasma-optical ammunition. Each ammunition when exiting the barrel inductively receives information about the delay of operation of the built-in remote fuse, calculated by computing unit 4. During firing, the barrel of the rapid-firing artillery unit 5 carries out programmed movement in azimuth and elevation angle. As a result, each subsequent ammunition from the series flies out of the barrel in a new direction. When the ammunition approaches a given point in space (for example, the bottom edge of a thundercloud), a remote fuse is triggered after the estimated time and the plasma-optical ammunition is detonated. Since in this example the response time of all the ammunition in the series is the same, and the barrel of the rapid-firing artillery mount rotates at the estimated angular velocity during firing, the trajectory of the detonation points of the 7th series of ammunition is an arc of a circle.

Around each point of detonation, an ionization region of atmospheric air is formed. The initial ionization of the air is provided by short-wave ultraviolet photons generated by high-temperature shock-compressed plasma, which is formed when the munition is triggered; it is further supported and amplified by electron avalanches developing in the strong electric field of a thundercloud.

In this example, the overlap of the ionized regions around the detonation points 7 is ensured by the angular movement of the barrel during firing, and the ammunition response time determines the distance (inclined range) at which the detonation zones are formed.

As a result, a spatially oriented extended conducting channel with a diameter of about 2 ... 5 meters is created near the mast of lightning rod 6. To form a 100-meter long canal, approximately 20 ammunition is required. In the electric field of a thunderstorm cell, the conducting plasma channel is polarized and leaders are excited from its opposite ends. Since the conducting plasma channel is formed along the line connecting the lightning cell and the mast of lightning rod 6, a downward leader from the conducting channel will grow in the same direction. This ensures a high probability of an oriented lightning strike 8 between a thunderstorm cell of a thundercloud 1 and a lightning rod 6 through a plasma channel in the form of an arc.

Example 2: the overlapping of ionized areas in the air from the operation of ammunition of plasma-optical action is carried out by changing the response time of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one (Fig.2).

In contrast to Example 1, the barrel of a rapid-firing artillery installation (automatic gun) 5 does not change its angular position and is aimed at a thunderstorm cell in the lower part of a thundercloud 2. Ammunition at the exit from the barrel of a gun 5 receives different response times, for example, t ₁ > t ₂ > t ₃ >...> t _n , where t ₁ is the response time of the 1st ammunition in the series, t ₂ is the response time of the 2nd ammunition, etc. As a result, the detonation points of 7 ammunition are located on the same line and, with the appropriate choice of the response time of each ammunition in the series, the ionized regions of air around the detonation points overlap and thereby form a conductive plasma channel oriented from the lightning cell towards the mast of lightning rod 6 near the artillery installation 5.

Further development of the processes of initiation of lightning occurs analogously to example 1 and leads to the occurrence of lightning discharge 8.

In example 2, a rectilinear plasma conducting channel is formed along the line of sight of the artillery mount 5.

Example 3: the overlapping of ionized areas in atmospheric air is carried out by simultaneously changing the direction of flight and the response time of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one.

In contrast to Examples 1 and 2, two mechanisms of the formation of an extended conducting plasma channel take place at once: due to the angular displacement of the barrel of the artillery mount 5 and due to the installation of different munition response times in the series. As a result of the coordinated use of the two mechanisms, any desired orientation of the plasma conducting channel can be obtained, for example horizontal, as shown in FIG. In this case, to ensure the protection of the object 3 points of detonation 7 of ammunition of plasma-optical action are located along the line connecting the multipolarly charged clouds 2 and 9, which ensures the initialization of lightning discharge 8 between them.

The above examples show the possibility of implementing the proposed method for initiating lightning discharges at the current level of technology.

In addition to lightning protection of objects, the proposed method can be used for artificial impacts on cloud processes in order to regulate their electrical activity.

The task - in terms of simplifying the method - is solved by the sophistication and functional simplicity of the used technical means.

The task - in terms of reducing the cost of the method of initiating lightning discharges - is solved by the structural simplicity of the technical means used and the low cost of consumable plasma-optical ammunition.

The problem, in terms of increasing the reliability of the method, is solved by the fact that the conducting plasma channel formed as a result of synchronized detonation of a series of ammunition of plasma-optical action has a significant cross-section (up to 5 m) and a lifetime, due to which, it is weakly affected by undesirable factors, for example local turbulence of the atmosphere.

The problem, in terms of expanding the capabilities of the method of initiating lightning discharges, is solved by the fact that by coordinated choice of the angular velocity of rotation of the barrel of the rapid-firing artillery mount and the response time of the ammunition in the series, any optimal orientation and shape of the plasma conducting channel can be realized and thereby further increase the reliability of the artificial initiation of lightning discharges.

Claims (4)

1. A method of initiating lightning discharges, including remote determination of the pre-discharge state and coordinates of lightning cells, as well as the creation of a plasma conductive channel, characterized in that the plasma conductive channel is created by synchronized detonation of a series of artillery ammunition of plasma-optical action, while the detonation points are arranged so that ionized areas that occur in atmospheric air when plasma-optical ammunition is triggered are located with an overlap m along the chain in the direction from a thunderstorm cell to the surface of the earth or to an adjacent thunderstorm cell. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the overlap of the ionized areas in atmospheric air from the operation of ammunition of plasma-optical action is carried out by changing the direction of flight of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one. 3. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the overlap of the ionized areas in the atmospheric air from the operation of the ammunition of the plasma-optical action is carried out by changing the response time of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous one. 4. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the overlap of the ionized areas in the atmospheric air from the operation of ammunition of plasma-optical action is carried out by simultaneously changing the direction of flight of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous and changing the response time of each subsequent ammunition in the series relative to the previous.

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