An equivalent discharge model of electrostatics spark

Electrostatic sparks are considered to be mainly resistive. However, experimental results show that the oscillation frequencies and amplitude attenuation of fitted waveform based on underdamped oscillation have discrepancies comparing with measured voltage waveform if spark gap is replaced by a pure resistance. To study the phenomenon, a simple device was built for strong electrostatic spark discharges of short discharge times. An equivalent discharge model including variable spark resistance and spark inductance was made to simulate the spark discharge. By comparative experiments under different ambient humidity, electrode gaps and charging capacitances, an exponential relationship between spark resistance and spark inductance with discharge time was verified.