Effective method for measuring the energy of propagating brush discharges

Due to their very high energy propagating brush discharges are the most dangerous electrostatic discharges. As it is known, they usually occur on thick insulating layers on which significant charge can be accumulated. Discharge energy is a function of several parameters, like the surface charge density (influenced by the thickness of the layer and its relative permittivity), the size of the charged surface, etc. This paper represents a laboratory model to examine the energy of propagating brush discharges. Based on these measurements list of results were evaluated to estimate the energy of the generated propagating brush discharges. This energy is especially important to determine how incentive these discharges are. By the help of the model the effect of the polarity of the original charging, the surface charge density of the sample and the geometry of the sample have been examined.