Transients

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A transient is a high voltage spike of less than 10 microseconds in duration. Transients in power lines may have voltage spikes up to 6,000 volts, and it is not unusual that spikes in commercial industrial circuits excess 1,000 volts.

High voltage transients follows the path of least resistance to the ground, creates a damaging heat in the circuit components and causing malfunctions and failure.

External Transient Sources

External transients at high voltage caused by lightning hitting the power lines are reduced through the distribution transformers by a factor typical 1 to 6. Since the transients caused by lighting may be extremely high - more than 50,000 volts - the resulting transients after the transformers in the distribution system may be very high when they reach the internal circuit.

Internal Transient Sources

Switching on and off of motors in the internal circuit can cause transients up to 2,500 volts.

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