The engineering successes achieved by South African specialist consulting engineers in the field of lightning protection were recently highlighted at a prestigious international conference in France.
Innopro directors, Ian McKechnie and Ian Jandrell (who is also head of the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at Wits University) presented a paper at the peer-reviewed International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLP 2004) held in September, based on their engineering interventions and results at four major southern African sites. These sites included a major airport, national telecommunications transmitter station, a large banking institution and an electrical utility national control centre, all located in southern Africa.
Ian McKechnie noted that the feedback received from clients when preparing the paper was very positive and that the methodologies implemented have had a very significant positive effect on performance of the installations. At the reviewed sites, no significant damage to equipment or disruption of service has been experienced since completion of the interventions, the various sites having experienced at least three to six lightning seasons since completion of the interventions.
The interventions were standards-based with the engineering designs in line with the latest international and South African standards, commented Ian Jandrell. He added that some of the significant engineering success issues, also highlighted by clients, included site-wide and local equipotentialisation and the effective use of zoning principles.
Specialist consulting engineers, Innopro, operating nationally and internationally from its centralised base in Centurion (Gauteng, South Africa), has developed an effective and systematic engineering methodology for the implementation of lightning protection and industrial EMC systems. The iLPS (integrated lightning protection solution) methodology has been successfully used and proven by Innopro across a range of industries and application environments in South Africa and internationally.
For more information contact Ian McKechnie, MD, Innopro, 012 667 5151, [email protected]
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