Christ the Redeemer Statue is a symbol of Rio de Janeiro and is one of the new seven wonders of the world. Statue is 38 meters tall including the 8 meter pedestal and nearly 28 meters wide, and located at the top of Corcouado Mountain. Unfortunately this iconic structure is one of the biggest targets to lightning strikes in Brazil with an average rate of at least 10 strikes per year!
Lightning strikes oftenly damage the statue and last time it costed over 4million USD to repair the damaged finger and face parts. Considering that the statue is one of the eye catching touristic places in Brazil, the cost of lightning damage rises up to a higher level during the renovation since it is closed to touristic visits.
Why is Christ the Redeemer Statue Hit by Lightning Strikes?
First of all, the statue is located on a rocky mountain where ground resistance is extremely high and this blocks lightning current move fast enough not to give any damage to structures. Lightning hits a poiğnt at the top of the structure and lightning current flows down to ground through the body of that structure. Simply to say; when the resistance at the bottom is high, current spends more time during its flow to ground and this delay makes the structure face the damaging effects of lightning current.
Lightning Protection for Christ the Redeemer Statue
The statue has a lightning protection system, but it does not solve the problem. Existing lightning protection solution is a set of lightning arresters (lightning rods) which are bonded to eachother by conductor cable and this conductor is connected to the grounding system at the bottom.
This is not the correct method to protect the statue from damaging lightning strikes because the structure is already a target of lightning and lightning arrester system attracts the strikes even more! Also, when the system “catches” the strikes, lightning current has to go down to ground through the shortest and most conductive way. In most cases, this way is not the conductor cable and current find the statue itself a better conductor and moves over the body of the statue with damaging the structure.
Lightning must be kept away from Christ the Redeemer Statue.
EvoDis® Lightning Prevention System is a unique lightning protection solution designed for tall metal structures and any structure with conductive body. EvoDis® dissipates the charges on the structure and make the structure “invisible” to lightning. Lightning acts as if the tower or structure does not exist there and strikes to the point at which it used to strike before the construction of the structure. This keeps the structures safe and free of lightning damage.
Replacing the existing lightning rods with EvoDis® units will create a lightning-free environment to the structure by dissipating the charges on statue body and making it “invisible” to lightning.
EvoDis® System has proven its 100% success by high voltage laboratory tests and field tests. EvoDis® protects hundreds of lightning prone towers worldwide and none of them have received any lightning strikes for the past 10 years of application.
EvoDis® Lightning Prevention System provides the real lightning protection for tall conductive structures.
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