FDTD Computation of Lightning-induced Surges in a Reinforced-Concrete Apartment Building

When lightning strikes an apartment building, transient voltages are induced in power and communication wires in the building. The lightning-induced voltages may cause malfunctions or failures of wired communication appliances in the building. Therefore, it is necessary to know the spatial distribution of lightning-induced voltage in the building. Although there are several works studying lightning-induced voltages in buildings, they do not consider the presence of concrete that accommodates steel structures. In this paper, lightning-induced voltages between wires in a simplified apartment building struck by lightning are computed using the finite-difference time-domain method, taking into account the presence of reinforced concrete. On the basis of the computed results, the effect of the presence of reinforced concrete on lightning-induced voltages is discussed.