Lightening strike question for the electrical gurus

[SaltwaterSlick]

Hey gang, a buddy of mine is building a metal secured building on his property and it sits sort of on a hill. Inside will be a living quarters of sorts, but it will be built out of a metal shipping container. Question is, with this thing sitting on a slab on the ground, what precautions would be necessary to protect it from lightening? If it were hit, would it be protected simply by its metal structure, or is there danger of anyone inside it during a lightening strike being injured, or the interior walls of wood/paneling being damaged or burned? My gut feel says no, but I'd like to get someone's opinion that is a bit more electrically qualified than I am... My background is in mechanical/hydraulics...

Thx!

[systemnt]

safer in a metal building than a wood stucture with metal extrusions.. (metal doesn't catch fire, and has better grounding characteristics than a wooden structure with metal on it..
This is what I remember being told when i was researching using an old sea can for a living quarter on some property..

[on-a-mission]

Drive grounding rods and fasten them to the structure

[Bonesplitter]

It would need to have ground rods driven and grounded. Not sure on the new code guidelines for this but it definitely needs to be bonded to ground I would imagine.

[TexaswBOWhunter]

He will need to bond he container to the gound rod of the electrical sytem (he can drive seperate rods for the container but those rods will have to be connected back to the main ground rod of the electrical system)... If he does not tie it back to the electrical system you will have a potential there and that could be dangerous... Electricity will follow the path of least resistance, whether it be in the form of lightning or an electrical short....

[Dale Moser]

I'd put embed plates in the slab, with rods on the bottom driven into the ground before the slab is poured.....then weld the container to the plates, and attach the electrical ground to one of them.

[Txjourneyman]

On campus we have a few metal containers with electrical gear. I built a grounding grid for each of them. I used six ground rods, each was 10' x 5/8" I drove them in the ground around each container and tied them together by Cadwelding 2/0 copper wire to each one forming a loop around each container. Each loop was buried 18" below grade. The 2/0 wire was then tied to the ground buss in the main panel.

[Humper]

google is your friend

http://www.egr.msu.edu/age/documents/news_archives/et/Lightning%20Protection%20for%20Homes%20and%20Farm%20Buildings.pdf

[SaltwaterSlick]

Hey guys, thanks for all the replys... This will make my buddy happy to know it at least can be done safely!

[Mason]

My last 4 years in the Corps I was based at MCAS Yuma, I level avionics, all of our test and repair equipment was housed in CONEX boxes for easy deployment...
We used One Ground rod at the Power station, and every one was grounded through it's electrical supply....
Granted thunder storms and lightning strikes in Yuma are rare, but we had a LOT of very ESD sensitive equipment in those containers...