Most of us have seen a Vandegraaf generator, or some other inductive device that can generate large sparks using inductive coils. On the factory floor there are some massive inductive loads that make this a significant design problem. This includes devices such as large motors and inductive furnaces. The root of the problem is that coils of wire act as inductors and when current is applied they build up magnetic fields, requiring energy. When the applied voltage is removed and the fields collapse the energy is dumped back out into the electrical system. As a result, when an inductive load is turned on it draws an excess amount of current (and lights dim), and when it is turn it off there is a power surge. In practical terms this means that large inductive loads will create voltage spikes that will damage our equipment.

Surge suppressors can be used to protect equipment from voltage spikes caused by inductive loads. See Surge Suppressors shows the schematic equivalent of an uncompensated inductive load. For this to work reliably we would need to over design the system above the rated loads. The second schematic shows a technique for compensating for an AC inductive load using a resistor capacitor pair. It effectively acts as a high pass filter that allows a high frequency voltage spike to be short circuited. The final surge suppressor is common for DC loads. The diode allows current to flow from the negative to the positive. If a negative voltage spike is encountered it will short circuit through the diode.

Surge Suppressors