~ National Lightning Safety Institute ~

Section 1.5.2

The 28th International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLP) was held September 17-21, 2006 in Kanazawa, Japan. There were 540 attendees from 41 countries, including only nine Americans. The conference-invited lecture by Professor C. Bouquegneau (Belgium) described in detail the recent IEC Lightning Protection Standard IEC 62305. His presentation included a strong condemnation of ESE and CTS/DAS air terminals.

Commonly observed on commerce and industry buildings was the air terminal design of very tall (5-8m) Franklin rods. Surge protection is a standard procedure. Japan insurance companies reported $US5 billion in lightning-related insurance claims for the year 2000. This was three times higher than 10 years earlier.

NLSI co-authored a paper with C. Gomes (Sri Lanka) and M. Ahmed (Bangladesh) describing past successes to establish lightning safety institutes in several South Asian countries. Discussions were held with new interested parties from China, Colombia, and Ukraine.

A tour of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force Weather Service Squadron meteorological station at Komatsu Air Base included the SAFIR lightning detection system and a network of 28 field mills. The west central coast of Japan has considerable (unusual) winter lightning. It was in Komatsu that the well-known video of a Boeing 747 self-triggered lightning strike was captured.

See the website www.iclp2006.net for details of the conference, including the schedule and list of papers presented. Readers wishing a CD copy of all the ICLP papers should contact iclp2006CD@lightningsafety.com