FDTD Analysis of Transient Electromagnetic Field Caused by Spark between Charged Metals

Abstract

Transient electromagnetic fields caused by the electrostatic discharge (ESD) between charged metals can be affected by the presence of the metal itself, whereas the effect has not been examined. This paper analyzes the occurrence elctromagnetic fields due to the spark between spherical metals, using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The numerical computation reveals that the presence of the metals increase the ESD field level according to the the metal dimension. In order to confirm the above finding, we have also calculated the occurrence field level from our previously proposed ESD source model, which consists of numberiess image dipoles that give the equipotential condition on the spherical metal surface.