The Dielectric Breakdown Lightning Model implements a common method for modeling lightning using a grid with regions of varying electric potential to simulate the electrical charge buildup during a lightning storm. To simulate the source of the lightning in the cloud, we  set the potential to zero and place a small region of negative charge near the top of the grid. Along the bottom of the grid, we set the boundary potential to one to simulate the positive charge on the ground. All other grid points are given an initial electric potential equal to 0.5. After solving Laplace's equation, we examine all the grid points that are adjacent to a negative charge. We choose one adjacent point as the new growth site for the lightning, representing a point where the air is ionized and lightning will develop.

The Dielectric Breakdown Lightning Model was developed as a final project in a sophomore-level Computational Physics course (Phy 200) using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.   Double clicking the jar file will run the program if Java is installed.  You can modify this simulation if you have EJS installed by right-clicking within the map and selecting "Open Ejs Model" from the pop-up menu item.

Please note that this resource requires at least version 1.6 of Java (JRE).