Coupling, propagation, and side effects of surges in an industrial building wiring system

Measurements were made in an industrial building to determine the propagation characteristics of surges in the AC power wiring of the facility. The surges, of the unidirectional type or the ring-wave type described in ANSI/IEEE C62.41-1980, were injected at one point of the system, and the resulting surges arriving at other points were measured. The results show how unidirectional surges couple through transformers and produce a ring-wave component in the response of the system. An unexpected side effect of these surges, applied to the power lines only, was apparent damage suffered by the data-line input components of some computer-driven printers.<>