IEC 61000-2-9 Ed. 2.0 en:2025

Full Description

This part of IEC 61000 defines the high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) environment that is one of the consequences of a high-altitude nuclear explosion.

There are two cases of nuclear detonations:
– high-altitude nuclear explosions;
– low-altitude nuclear explosions.

For civil systems, the most important case is the high-altitude nuclear explosion. In this case, the other effects of the nuclear explosion such as blast, ground shock, thermal and nuclear ionizing radiation are not present at the ground level. However, the electromagnetic pulse associated with the explosion can cause disruption of, and damage to, communications, electronic systems, electric power systems and other portions of the commercial critical infrastructures, thereby upsetting the stability of modern society.

The object of this document is to establish a common reference for the HEMP environment in order to select realistic stresses to apply to victim equipment for evaluating their performance and in order to develop protection methods to minimize the impacts of the HEMP.