Analysis of High-Frequency Grounds: Comparison of Theory and Experiment

To date, there has not been a completely satisfactory comparison between theory and experiment for a ground system that is excited by a current with a submicrosecond rise time. This requires careful definitions of both the measured and calculated voltages because the electric field is no longer conservative and voltages become path dependent. An experiment performed by EdF in the late 1970s has been carefully analyzed and compared with a simulation using full-wave theory. The comparison is excellent, and this example can now be used as a "gold standard" to which approximate grounding theories can be compared.