How Transients Travel

Transients travel two ways.  They either follow your electrical system wiring through conduction or by induction on wiring that runs parallel to other wires.

CONDUCTION:

Transient activity is transferred through your facility through conduction because your electrical system is designed to conduct electricity as efficiently as possible.  A side-effect is that it transmits some types of transient voltages extremely efficiently as well.

Lightning is a low-frequency transient and it does not travel well along electrical lines. It’s power is greatly reduced in a fairly short distance over the type and size of wiring found within your facility.

The most common type of transient produced within facilities (and passed along to you by neighboring businesses that you may share a transformer with) is mid-to-high-frequency transients.  These transients travel along your electrical wires with extreme efficiency.

INDUCTION:

Physical connections aren’t required to transfer transient voltage to other conductors within your facility.  The most likely cause of this type of transfer is wiring that runs parallel for extended distances.  In many cases, a large transient on one conductor can became to smaller (but still large) transients on multiple conductors.

The “fix” for this is to make sure that all wiring is “twisted”.  In fact, this is something that is required when installing wiring within conduit but it is our experience that the twist required to eliminate transient induction (about one twist in 18 inches) is not
either not present at all, or not twisted sufficiently to do the job correctly.