How to Protect your Soil Moisture Sensors from Lightning Surge
We occasionally see soil moisture sensors damaged by lightning. Here’s what to do to protect them.
The secondary products of a lightning strike include electromagnetic pulses, electrostatic pulses, and earth current transients.
Surge suppression components typically perform their suppression function by temporarily short circuiting the voltage between two wires, several devices, or ground.
Electromagnetic pulses are created by the strong magnetic field that is formed by the short term current flow taking place in the lightning strike. With current flows as high as 510kA per microsecond, these currents create very large magnetic fields. These short-term magnetic fields then induce voltages onto wires and cables.
Electrostatic pulses are created by electrostatic fields that accompany a thunderstorm. Any cable suspended above the earth during a thunderstorm is immersed in the electrostatic field and will be electrically charged. Quick changes in the charges stored in both the clouds and earth take place whenever there is a lightning strike. The charge on the cable must now be discharged or neutralized. Unable to find a path to ground (earth), it breaks down insulation and component in its efforts to return to earth.
Earth current transients are the direct result of the neutralization process that immediately follows the end of lightning strike. Neutralization is accomplished by the movement or redistribution of charge along or near the earth’s surface from all the points where the charge had been initially induced to the point where the lightning strike has just terminated. Earth current transients create a shift in potential across a ground plan, often called a “ground bounce”.
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