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AssigneeCentre National De La Recherche Scientifique
InventorsMax Goldman, Alice Goldman, Stephane Kuhn, Pierre-Emmanuel Langlois, Gerard Berger
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The invention relates to a corona discharge lightning rod comprising a tip which is isolated from the ground and having a base which is connected via discharge means to the ground, said lightning rod being suitable for ionizing the ambient atmosphere at the end of its tip. An electric circuit is provided for periodically reducing the potential of the tip to a value which is too low to maintain corona discharge, thereby producing periodic and intermittent corona discharge pulses. Preferably, the tip is electrically connected to a potential generator such that the potential (V.sub.0) applied to the tip is a variable potential in the form of recurrent wave trains, and such that the peak value of the first half cycle of the train having a polarity opposite to the polarity of the ambient atmosphere is greater than the threshold at which the corona effect takes place. This need only occur in the presence of the natural amplification (V.sub.1) as produced by the ambient electric field which exists during a thunderstorm.
A corona discharge lightning rod comprising a tip which is isolated from the ground the base of said tip being connected to the ground via discharger means, said lightning rod being suitable for ionizing the ambient atmosphere around the end of said tip, said lightning rod further including means for producing recurrent cycles of periodically alternated increases and reductions in the potential of said tip to values above and below a level to maintain a corona discharge for producing periodic and intermittent corona discharge pulses.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.