Surge and Lightning Protection

for traffic operations has remained static for decades

Bill Cook, Atlantic Scientific Corp.
4300 Fortune Place, Ste A, West Melbourne, FL 32904

Surge and Lightning Protection in traffic cabinets has survive a direct strike, once we fully understand the
remained static for decades whereas the equipment that mechanism that causes the damage.
is installed in the cabinets has advanced significantly
over the years with digital traffic controllers, cameras, The expectation of failures of the surge protection has
video controllers, data loggers and many other devices. led to the evolution of PLUGIN surge protectors that
These same devices are now being used in ITS deploy- allow for a “Quick” change when they fail. This is cer-
ments, resulting in costly damage. tainly a significant step forward, minimizing downtime
at an intersection. This avoids having to shut down
In addition to this, IEEE specifications concerning the all power to the cabinet in order to physically unwire
surge risk have now evolved with additional informa- the surge protector and replace it with a new one. As
tion from the scientific community, both in the USA and you can imagine, this will be concurrent with a thun-
around the world. derstorm, which caused the failure in the first place.
Doing a “hot-swop” of a plug-in unit is fast and effi-
Knowing that there are significant failures in the in- cient eliminating the need to power down the cabinet;
stalled base of traffic controller and ITS equipment we however, this is dependent on the failure of the surge
need to review the standard specifications for surge protector. Some manufacturer’s products are known
protection devices and their interconnection in these to burst into flames or even explode instead of failing
cabinets. safely. So these are products that have been developed
with the assumption that there is nothing you can do
First, lets review the general specification for surge about a “probable” direct strike. It is a method of cur-
protection as stated in IEEE C62 - 41: For many years ing the symptom not the disease.
this specification has been the bible for determining the
threat levels of surge that can be expected on connected This leads us onto another question: UL1449 2nd edition
AC power lines. The threat levels are broken into three requires that all surge protectors should fail “safely”.
categories: Category A, B & C where C is the worst case The fact that few surge protectors used in traffic or
scenario with an expectation of up to 10,000 amps & ITS cabinets are UL1449 2nd edition tested and listed,
20,000 volts being delivered to a “service entrance” accounts for the smell of burning, that is often caused
location on a utility power line. Although all surges by a failed surge protector.
are not necessarily related to lightning, this extreme is
considered as lightning related. Back to the problem at hand, why do 20kA rated surge
protectors fail? There are two basic reasons: The first is
We all know that if they are subjected to an abnormal over-voltage from
in high lightning the utility power company. The second is when the
activity areas or surge exceeds the 20 kA rating of the device. There is
seasons, the pri- little that we can do about the utility companies power,
mary surge protec- however failures due to this problem are rare in the
tor in a traffic con- USA. The second cause is very common, however more
trol cabinet fails common in certain areas and locations, than others.
frequently, even
though the speci- Understanding the coupling mechanism of a direct
fication for a surge strike is the first issue to address, then solving the
protector in a traf- problem becomes easier. Lightning rarely hits a traf-
fic cabinet must be fic control cabinet but does strike a lamp pole, tree or
capable of handling a 20kA surge and surviving. This nearby tall building. When this happens, huge currents
implies that something is amiss between the specifica- and voltage potentials are involved that will elevate
tion and reality. The obvious answer is that it must be ground potential at the location. Once ground poten-
a direct lightning strike to the site and most people tial has been elevated it will dissipate uniformly in all
believe that the equipment cannot survive a direct hit. directions until it is finally attenuated. This event has
This is the easy route to take however it is possible to
Continued on page 26
Page 24 IMSA Journal
Surge and Lightning Protection . . . Continued from page 24

a number of variables that effect how far it will travel

and how long it takes to dissipate the charge. Two sig-
nificant factors are the impedance of the soil and the
charge that was in the strike. This is known to be as high
as 200,000 amps and millions of volts of potential.

So we are left with the probabilities. Did the lightning

that hit a lamp pole at the intersection have 1,000 or
100,000 amps of charge?

Then why is it that some sites have an AC surge protec-

tor that has never failed in 20 years, while others fail at
least once a year. This is all related to the location of
Clearly we can see that anything connected to ground the site. A site in the city will be the big survivor as the
in the near vicinity will have an elevated potential, ground potential can be divided among various routes
(voltage), to some extent. This charge will then see the to a lower potential via each nearby buildings electrical
Utility line as a route to dissipate some of the energy. system. This means that the surge protector only has
One major route is to the utility transformer which to deal with a fraction of the charge. The opposite is
is grounded to a lower or higher potential, depend- the installation in a rural setting. Being remote, means
ing where the strike attachment point was. The surge that the charge is not being divided between a number
protector is the path chosen to conduct this charge of electrical systems. These are the most vulnerable to
“off-site” over the utility wires, which are a lower im- failure however there are always exceptions. Imagine
pedance path than traveling through earth ground. a tall building downtown that has an intersection at its
base. Lightning has a greater probability to attach to the
This is the mechanism that causes most 20kA rated roof air terminals of the building’s lightning protection
surge protectors to fail. The European IEC 61312 specifi- system than anything lower in the area. Imagine, the
cation tells us that the current through the surge protec- building is struck, the charge travels down the cop-
tor can be as high as 100kA (half of 200kA where 50% per conductors down the outside of the building and
will dissipate into ground while up to 50% will attempt elevates the ground potential. This in turn elevates the
to travel off-site via the utility wires). This is the extreme potential at the ground connection in the traffic cabinet,
case, however, a failure of the surge protector at this at the base. The building has it’s own transformer and
time, will allow the surge to “flashover” in the cabinet so the charge will try to equalize to the transformer
to find another route to dissipate, causing random dam- feeding the AC power or communications line in the
age. This mechanism has now been added to the IEEE traffic cabinet.
C62-41 specification. Reference is made to a Scenario
1 which is the surge delivered on the utility line, while For as long as the surge protector survives and shunts
Scenario 2 refers to a direct or nearby strike. the current it will also equalize the voltages in the cabi-
nets of everything connected to ground. With a surge
We know from the research in the USA that the light- protector in circuit and functioning, then there is no
ning current can range from as little as 200 amps up to damage. Once the surge protector fails, the charge will
200,000 amps. Analysis of extensive data tells us that “flash-over” inside the cabinet looking for a route to get
the median current of a direct lightning strike is 35 kA out. The victim is often the traffic or video controller
for a negative flash. The key is that less than 1% of the or camera circuits, even LED lamps.
flashes in the data base, exceed 120kA. This gives us a
gauge of risk. The 200kA risk as specified in the Euro- Now we know we must increase the surge current
pean specification is rare, however, this does indicate capacity of the AC power surge protectors in the
that a 20kA surge protector cannot handle the median cabinets, however this is only part of the problem.
current of a direct strike. Continued on page 28
Page 26 IMSA Journal
Surge and Lightning Protection . . . Continued from page 26
The standard traffic con- Atlantic Scientific Corp (ASC), provides a “ZoneGuard-
trol surge protector has ian Traffic Control” (ZGTC tested and certified by
two functions. There is a FL DOT) surge protector unit that is rated for 60 kA
parallel connected section surge current capacity. This triples the life expectancy
that has the 20 kA rating of the surge protection with a direct effect on possible
providing protection to the equipment damage; however this does not address the
total cabinet. Typically the secondary protection needed for any additional equip-
letthru- voltage of such a ment in the cabinet. In such circumstances a secondary
device is >2,500 volts when surge protector will need to be added in series with the
shunting a 20 kA pulse on the AC power. Then there wire feeding the cabinet bus. This is the ZoneGuardian
is a second section that is connected in series in order Terminal Strip (ZGTS), unit. Caution must be taken
to provide a “cascade” primary / secondary function to avoid using this surge protector in the circuit feed-
to supply “extra” protection to the AC line feeding the ing power to the “Incandescent Lamps”. It will easily
traffic controller. This has been the standard configura- handle the current load for LED light installations as
tion for decades. they have a low current draw and are more susceptible
to surge damage.

Some traffic con-

trol cabinets are in-
stalled with plug-in
surge protectors,
but with the same
basic internal cir-
cuitry. ASC have
designed a replace-
ment unit with 100
kA of surge cur-
rent capacity, the
ZONE-IT which
also provides three
outlets in the cov-
er, providing sec-
ondary protection
power access. These
power outlets are to
feed power to ad-
ditional electronics
in the cabinet such
as the cameras.

Now when we add cameras or video controllers to There is no doubt that the primary /secondary surge
the cabinet, for instance, they only have the primary protection configuration works extremely well. This
protection on their supply circuits. This will allow up configuration has demonstrated that with a 20,000 amp
to 2,500 volt on the AC line to the additional electronic and 40,000 volt test pulse, the resultant letthru- voltage
equipment. was 240 volts to the equipment being protected. This
configuration has already been installed at many sites
What’s the answer ? in high lightning density areas of the USA and is well
The solutions are relatively simple and cost effective proven.
with three options to consider.
The goal is to achieve this performance or better for
Knowing that there are 10’s of thousands of traffic cabi- new manufactured cabinets. To easily achieve this
nets installed throughout the USA we need a simple we recommend splitting these functions, primary &
solution for installed units and another for new equip- secondary into two distinct devices instead of housing
ment coming from the vendor’s factory. them into one box. The ASC ZoneDefender is a mature
& well proven UL 1449 2nd edition listed primary surge
You can simply replace the hardwired unit, when it protector rated at 80 kA of surge current capacity. This
fails, for one with higher surge current capacity with- includes both LED status indicators and contacts for
out wiring changes or modifications, this is the easiest. Continued from page 29
Page 28 IMSA Journal
Surge and Lightning Protection . . . Continued from page 28

and new manufacture that will make an installed site survive

a direct strike.

For more details, contact Bill Cook,

[email protected] or 800-544-4737 x 134.

remote alarms. This is connected in

parallel with the incoming power.
A secondary surge protector,
ZoneGuardian TS is connected in
series with the power distribution
bus, which includes power to the
controller. In this way, all circuits
in the cabinet have optimum surge
protection. This unit is also UL
1449 listed which ensures that any
possible failures will fail safe, pre-
venting fires and explosions. All
these units come with the standard
ASC warranty of a 10 year FREE
replacement warranty.

In conclusion:
• We can see that the standard
20kA surge current capacity
surge protector is inadequate
for either traffic control or ITS
applications.
• Additional Secondary surge
protection is required for the
complete cabinet AC power
system to facilitate additional
electronics and LED lights.
• There are solutions available
for both installed equipments

July/August 2006 Page 29