Abstract
In this work, in order to obtain the detailed information about lightning electromagnetic pulses, the electric fields radiated from multiple lightning return strokes were measured and analyzed statistically. The electric field measuring system consists of a hemisphere antenna of 30cm in diameter, integrator and data acquisition device, and its frequency bandwidth ranges from 200Hz to 1.56MHz, and the sensitivity is 0.96㎷/V/m. The electric field signals are digitized every 200ns with the transient signal analyzer having the resolution of 12-bit and the recording length of 5 kilowords and are registered at personal computer. As a result, the electric fields produced by the first return stroke begin with a slow initial part or front, which starts just after or during the last stepped leader. On the average the rise times of the electric fields for the positive first, second and third strokes are 4.21${\mu}\textrm{s}$, 3.94${\mu}\textrm{s}$ and 2.75${\mu}\textrm{s}$, respectively, and those for the negative first, second and third strokes are 3.46${\mu}\textrm{s}$, 3.15${\mu}\textrm{s}$ and 2.79${\mu}\textrm{s}$, respectively. The zero-crossing times of the electric fields for first return strokes range from about 10 to 80${\mu}\textrm{s}$. The mean zero-crossing times for subsequent return strokes are shorter than those for first lightning return strokes.