The Laboratory on Thunder Physics and Protective Engineering

The Laboratory on Thunder Physics and Protective Engineering performs the fundamental theoretical and application research on thunder supervision, alarming and protection, centering on the fundamental, strategic, perspective and application tasks relating to the economic construction and anti-thunder and disaster reduction in China; it provides the scientific and technologic support and technical training services for the operational demand on thunder. This laboratory is the important base for the research of atmospheric electricity in China, and has the feature of combined scientific theory and operational application in terms of research.

1. The research on thunder physics, mechanism of lightning stroke and protection technology.

2. The research on the new technology of thunder detection.

3. The research on the features of thunderstorm and thunder activities and the methods on thunder alarming and forecasting.

4. The research on the disastrous features and mechanism of thunder.

1.Developing and manufacturing high-accurate new thunder supervision system;

2.Developing and manufacturing sonic, electric, optic and magnetic detecting device for thunder;

3.The research on the rules and mechanism for the movements of thunderstorm and thunder;

4.Developing the near alarming technology for thunder (1-2 hours) and the technology of thunder movement forecasting (2-6 hours);

5.Performing fine comprehensive observation and research on the physical procedure of thunder and the testing of new protection technology in the realistic thunder and electromagnetic environment.

The Laboratory on Thunder Physics and Protective Engineering now has 14 full-time staffs, in which there are 3 researchers and 7 associate researchers and senior engineers. There are also 15 part-time staffs (including doctors and masters as well as visiting scholars. The middle-aged and young backbones are dominating in the staffs in laboratory; there are 11 full-time staffs under 40, and 5 of them were elected as the excellent youth of China Academy of Meteorological Science; and 2 of them are listed in the advanced talent cultivation plan of China Academy of Meteorological Science.

1.It has independently developed the highly-accurate new-kind lightning detecting system, which has 3D time-space detecting capability to intracloud lightning, cloud-to-ground lightning and narrow dipolar impulsive discharge events; this system has obvious advantages and potential in terms of technical innovation, detecting capability and application perspective.

2. It has initially realized the writing of electrification and discharge parameters in WRF mode, and such work is leading in China, it not only provides the important measures for us to research the lightning movement under the middle-scale background conditions, and it also set the foundation for the research on lighting forecast testing in the future.

3. The determination of the relationship among lightning, precipitation, particle content in cloud, intensity of typhoon development and its routine has set the foundation for applying the lightning information.

4. The near alarming system for lightning has filled the blank on this platform in China, in which many innovative methods have been integrated and used, and the product form on near alarming for lightning is issued for the first time. This system has been popularized in the meteorological departments in 24 provinces of China, and it has played an important role in the thunder alarming in many important activities, such as World Expo and Universiade, and it is also applied in the departments of artificial influence weather and fire extinguishing in forest.

5. The field testing platform for thunder is the perfect platform incorporating the testing of thunder observation and protection in China, and it has resolved the problem of synchronized and highly-accurate collection of multi-parameter lightning data and the data on protective testing in the large-scale space innovatively, and has obtained large amount of first-hand information. Based on such platform, the thunder protection test has been performed on many devices such as automatic meteorological station, wireless communication base station, high-voltage power transmission line, buried cable, wind-driven generator and surge protection device, and the testing results have firmly promoted the innovation of the testing devices and methods of anti-thunder elements.

6. In the observation, testing and research of the discharge procedure in high-rise buildings, the phenomenon of stroking under the upward-connected leader top part (the non-top – top connection) at the downward step of natural cloud-to-ground lightning was discovered for the first time in the world. At the same time, the technology of reconstruction of 3D lightning channel based on the optic observation of double stations developing on the basis of this testing is beneficial for overcoming the limit of previous 2D observation, and it has provided a kind of routine to recognize the development, transmission and connection features of lightning more objectively.

7. It has independently established the first data with the data of thunder disaster as the main collection object in China – the National Database on Thunder Disaster. The research on the features of thunder disaster on the basis of national data on thunder disaster has systematically implied the features of thunder disasters in China, such as spatio-temporal distribution, industrial distribution, environmental distribution and personnel distribution. 

The interior of laboratory

The platform of near alarming system for thunder

One ground-triggered lightning

One altitude-triggered lightning