Practice Article

One of the most significant market drivers in the resistor industry currently is the need for pulse withstanding resistors. In some cases, design rules or time constraints may require the design engineer to overdesign his circuit to accommodate a pulse event. In many other cases, selecting the correct pulse withstanding resistor presents an opportunity to reduce size, weight and cost of a design. It is important that design engineers dealing with surge events understand the significant difference between pulse voltage withstanding and pulse power withstanding resistors. 

Applications vary from line protection for telecommunications to surge withstanding resistors for use in circuit breakers.