Introduction[]
Recently, the wiki is receiving tons of content about lightning calculations. Some people (including me) make mistakes by calculating the area in a wrong way. This blog serves to explain how to calculate these feats in a correct way.
How the method works[]
The method is pretty easy. You just need to find the cross section area of the strike. The most common mistake was calcing the surface area of the entire lightning bolt, instead of the its strike area. In fiction, the most common shape of the strike is a circle, so the formula for the area is Area = Radius^2*3.14. Of course, this is not a rule, if the strike has a different shape, then fell free to calc its area using the correct formula.
Formula: Radius^2*3.14
- Radius in meters
The next step is multiply the area by the lightning bolt density, wich is 9.54*10^7 A/m^2. After multiplying by the density, you need to multiply by the volts value, wich is 1e+8. I will use an example of a 30m wide lightning.
- Radius: 15 meters
- Density: 9.54*10^7 A/m^2
- Volts: 1e+8
So the value is 6.74001e+18 watts.
Now, you need to multiply the current value by the time of the duration. The standard is 10-190 microseconds, if the lightning last more time, you just need to multiply by 1 second.
So, fell free to use this blog as a basis or to justify the method.
- Note: You need to prove the lightning is actually as big as the bolt is. Do not confuse how wide it is with the width of the luminosity.
- Note 2: This should only be used for cloud to ground lightning
- Note 3: The limit of seconds is 1 second