This award supports Professor Martin A. Uman and several junior members of his research group at the University of Florida to collaborate in a study of the behavior of lightning with Professor Michel Ianoz and others of the Laboratory of Electrical Energy Research, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland. They will carry out research in the modeling of return strokes and the applications of these models to horizontal power line coupling of close lightning strokes. The research plan expands and enhances Dr. Uman's ongoing cooperative research with this group and others at the Universities of Bologna and Rome, Italy. It makes use of measurements obtained by the U.S. and Swiss research groups at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in 1991, using Swiss equipment. The collaborators also plan to collect more data from further joint experiments. This research will advance basic knowledge about lightning and its possible electromagnetic interactions. Its applications are of particular importance to electric power distribution systems in the United States and elsewhere. It links three very strong research groups and provides an outstanding training opportunity for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in Dr. Uman's research group at the University of Florida.
