Patrick, After sending my previous email at 2 am in the morning I realized that just measuring the induced voltages in a loop is not a good way to compare the static buildup of different footware. The main reason for this is that when a charged person is approaching an object at lower potential (the ground plane in this case), at one point the intervening air breaks down resulting in an arc (air discharge). The severity of air discharges (current, EM fields generated, etc) is strongly dependent on the arc length which in turn depends on several parameters such as speed of approach, air pressure, orientation of the electrodes, etc, etc. So, multiple air discharges at one voltage level from the same person wearing the same footware could produce different EM fileds and different induced voltages in the loop. So, measuring just the induced voltage without measuring the arc length will not be a good comparison between different footware. Thanks, Ram Chundru ESD/EMC Engineer, Texas Instruments Ram Chundru <rchundru_umr@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: Patrick, I read the original article and it looks like the hospital equipment had soft failures (malfunction but no damage). If you want to non-destructively test the equipment you should test it for indirect ESD where you take an ESD generator and zap large metallic structures near the equipment but not into the equipment. Indirect ESD typically causes soft failures since the EM fields generated by the ESD generator couple to the equipment and induce voltages and currents that are typically not sufficient to cause damage. On the other hand, if you test the equipment for direct ESD where you directly zap the equipment you can cause both soft and hard failures. Soft failures are harder to analyze as the coupling path is not always obvious. Regarding your other question about measuring the static buildup on different footwear, you can use an electrostatic voltmeter (also called a non-contacting voltmeter) to measure the voltages on charged objects. The probe of the fieldmeter typically has to be positioned relatively close to the test object which may not be practical in your case. The voltages on the charged persons could go up to 30 kV which may not be measurable by the electrostatic voltmeter. Another thing you can do is to use an ESD event detector which has a magnetic loop antenna that picks up the fields generated by ESD and reads out the number of events. Or you can build a simple small loop antenna and orient it such that it picks up the maximum magnetic field when the charged person discharges into a large grounded metal sheet. By doing repeated experiments with different footwear and measuring the induced voltages in the loop, you can compare different footwear. Thanks, Ram Chundru ESD/EMC Engineer, Texas Instruments Tom Dagostino wrote: Testing equipment will likely expose any issues with them and static. = When the issues are exposed there is a high probability that the instrument = will die. The response to static will be one of three, no effect, disrupts operation, destroys unit. It is likely that the manufacture of the equipment has already done the static discharge test as part of the certification process. There are likely standard to which these pieces = of equipment must pass. I think most semiconductor fabs have test equipment that everyone who = enters the fab must use to show the anti static protection measures the fab has employed is working. You might want to check out what they use. Tom Dagostino Teraspeed(R) Labs 13610 SW Harness Lane Beaverton, OR 97008 503-430-1065 tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx=20 www.teraspeed.com=20 Teraspeed Consulting Group LLC 121 North River Drive Narragansett, RI 02882 401-284-1827 -----Original Message----- From: si-list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:si-list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] = On Behalf Of Zabinski, Patrick Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 3:21 PM To: si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [SI-LIST] ESD, shoes, and hospitals... A recent article [1] states a Swedish hospital might ban Crocs shoes (all-plastic clogs) to avoid static interference. They do = not cite any specific failures or severe problems with static charge, but they're concerned enough to consider banning these particular shoes. This article caught the attention of a few folks here, and we thought about running some experiments to see how bad of a problem we have in our hospital environments, but we're not exactly sure of what experiments we should/could run to determine if we have a problem, how bad of a problem we have, and = what shoe types are of most concern. Got any ideas? =3D20 Are there some simple tests we can run that measure static buildup (in Volts) on people wearing different footwear? Is there a simple way of characterizing the relative performance of different footwear (e.g., = ability to build charge more than other shoes)? We have thousands of pieces of medical equipment that might be susceptible to static electricity. Any ideas how we can non-destructively test the equipment? Thanks, Pat Zabinski [1] We believe the original article was published in The Local (http://www.thelocal.se/). A copy can be found at http://www.wcsh6.com/printfullstory.aspx?storyid=3D3D58243. ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.net List archives are viewable at: =20 //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu =20 ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List technical documents are available at: http://www.si-list.net List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu --------------------------------- Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell? 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