WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When Benjamin Franklin made his first lightning rod within the 1750s after famously experimenting with flying a kite with a change hooked up throughout a thunderstorm, the American inventor had no manner of realizing that it might stay cutting-edge. for hundreds of years.
Scientists at the moment are shifting to enhance an 18th-century innovation with Twenty first-century know-how—a system utilizing high-energy lasers that will revolutionize lightning safety. Researchers stated Monday they’ve efficiently used a laser pointed into the sky from the highest of Mount Santis in northeastern Switzerland to deflect lightning strikes.
With additional improvement, this Laser Lightning Rod can defend important infrastructure together with energy crops, airports, wind farms and launch pads. Lightning causes billions of {dollars} in harm to buildings, communication methods, energy strains, and electrical tools yearly whereas additionally killing hundreds of individuals.
The tools was hauled to the highest of the mountain at about 8,200 toes (2,500 metres), some elements utilizing a gondola and others by helicopter, and targeted into the sky above 400 toes (124 metres). A tower belonging to the telecommunications supplier Swisscom (SCMN.S)one of many European buildings most affected by lightning.
In two-month trials in 2021, it fired intense laser pulses — 1,000 occasions a second — to redirect lightning strikes. All 4 strikes had been efficiently intercepted when the system was energetic. Within the first case, the researchers used two high-speed cameras to file the redirection of the lightning’s path greater than 160 toes (50 meters) away. Three extra are documented with completely different information.
“We have now proven for the primary time that lasers can be utilized to information pure lightning,” stated physicist Aurelien Houard of the Laboratory of Utilized Optics at Ecole Polytechnique in France, coordinator of the Laser Lightning Rod mission and lead creator of the analysis printed within the journal. Nature photonics.
Lightning is a high-voltage electrical discharge between a cloud and the bottom, inside a cloud or between clouds.
“In its trajectory, the extraordinary laser can generate lengthy columns of plasma within the ambiance with electrons, ions, and particles of scorching air,” Howard stated, referring to positively charged particles referred to as ions and negatively charged particles referred to as electrons.
“Right here we’ve got proven that these plumes of plasma can act as lightning guides,” Howard added. “It is necessary as a result of it is step one towards laser-based lightning safety that may truly attain a whole lot of meters (yards) or 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) excessive with enough laser energy.”
The laser is the dimensions of a giant automobile and weighs greater than 3 tons. It makes use of lasers from German industrial machine maker Trumpf Group. With College of Geneva scientists additionally enjoying a key position, the experiments had been carried out in collaboration with the airline ArianeGroup, a European three way partnership between Airbus SE (AIR.PA) and Safran SA (SAF.PA).
This idea, first proposed within the Seventies, has been profitable in laboratory circumstances, however thus far not within the area.
Lightning rods, courting again to Franklin’s time, are steel rods on high of buildings, linked to the bottom with wire, that conduct lightning electrical prices to the bottom. Its limitations embody defending solely a small space.
Howard predicted that 10 to fifteen years of extra work can be required earlier than the Laser Lightning Rod would come into frequent use. One concern is to keep away from interference with plane in flight. In truth, air site visitors within the space got here to a halt when the researchers used the laser.
“In truth, there’s a potential drawback with utilizing the system with air site visitors within the space as a result of the laser can harm a pilot’s eye if he goes previous the laser beam and appears down,” Howard stated.
Reporting by Will Dunham; Enhancing by Lisa Shumaker
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