Application Note

Business Development – FieldConnex®

Page 1 of 20

2010-04-12

Surge Protection for Fieldbus System

Distribution Engineers specifying and designing fieldbus systems that require surge pro-
tection should review and refer to this document.

Objective Understanding of basic surge protection methods, including installation and

grounding required for surge protection in various protected/hazardous envi-
ronments.

Trigger To ensure proper application of Surge Protection devices to fieldbus systems.

Summary It is important to protect fieldbus equipment against induced transient voltage

and to safely divert the surge current to a controlled point to ground. This can
increase plant availability and reduce operational expenditures. When install-
ing surge protection barriers for fieldbus application in hazardous areas many
points have to be observed.

Table of Contents
1. Basic Theory ................................................................................................. 2
1.1. Lightning Formation ............................................................................... 2
1.2. Lightning Types ...................................................................................... 3
1.3. Lightning Impact..................................................................................... 4
1.4. Lightning Protection for process plants.................................................. 6
2. Fieldbus Introduction .................................................................................... 7
3. Surge Protection Basics ............................................................................... 7
4. Additional features required for Fieldbus Surge Protection.......................... 9
5. General Fieldbus Architecture .................................................................... 10
6. Surge Protection for the Fieldbus system................................................... 10
7. Surge Protection for the Control Room Elements ...................................... 11
8. Surge Protection inside the Field Junction Box .......................................... 12
9. Surge Protection for Field Devices ............................................................. 13
10. Surge Protection in Hazardous Areas ...................................................... 14
10.1 Surge Protection for Zone 2/Div 2 Non Arcing / Non incendive / Ex ic
applications ........................................................................................ 14
Ex nA or non-incendive ........................................................................... 14
Ex nL/Ex ic without voltage limitation on the trunk .................................. 15
Ex nL/Ex ic with voltage limitation on the trunk ....................................... 16
10.2. Surge Protection for Explosion proof / Increased safety applications 16
10.3. Surge Protection for Zone1 Intrinsically Safe applications ................ 17
11. Grounding and Shielding of Surge Protection devices............................. 18
11.1. Direct Shield Grounding (DP-LBF-1.34, DP-LBF-I1.34) .................... 18
11.2. Indirect Shield Earthing (DP-LBF-1.34, DP-LBF-I1.34) ..................... 19
12. Standards Conformity ............................................................................... 20

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1. Basic Theory
1.1. Lightning Formation

Separation of the Electric Charges in the Cloud

During a storm, clouds become electrically charged and an electrically nega-

tive layer is formed at the bottom of the cloud. This negative charge causes
the appearance of a positive electric charge on the surface of the ground be-
low the cloud (see Figure 1: Separation of the electric charges in the cloud)

Stepped Leader

When the negatively-charged layer becomes strong enough to overcome air’s

resistance, electrons flow toward the ground in steps (approximately 10 of
meters per second) along a path of least resistance leaving a trail of ionized
gas (the downward-flowing electrons collide with air molecules). This forma-
tion is called a “stepped leader”. However the ‘forked’ path is not the actual
lightning bolt that we actually see (see Figure 2: Stepped Leader)

Corona Discharge

As the stepped leader approaches the earth, the positive charge on the
ground’s surface increases due to the ground electrons’ repulsion. This posi-
tive charge called “corona discharge” moves up into the air through any con-
ducting objects and reaches out for the approaching stepped leader. Until now
the process is still invisible (see Figure 3: Corona discharges).

Arc Channel

When the downward moving stepped leader connects with the corona dis-
charge (at around 100 meters altitude), a continuous path between the cloud
and the ground is formed (arc channel) and a powerful return stroke is trig-
gered. This extremely fast return stroke at half the speed of light progresses

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upward from the ground to the cloud following the ionized trail of the stepped
leader. The path as well as the ‘branches’ light up. This is the visible bright
starting act of the lightning (see Figure 4: Arc channel).

Dart leader

If the electric field in the cloud is still strong enough, the first return stroke
reaching the cloud generates a second discharge, which flows down the same
path as the first return stroke and forms a straight line. This phenomenon is
called the “dart leader”. When this dart leader gets to the ground, a second
return stroke is triggered. This activity is reproduced up to 3 or 4, sometimes
even 20 times. The flash is usually not as bright as the first return stroke but
the repetition of the stroke makes the lightning flash seems to flicker (see
Figure 5: Dart leader).

1.2. Lightning Types

Lightning can occur in five ways: cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-air, intra-cloud,
cloud-to-ground, and ground-to-cloud (see Figure 6: Types of lightning).

Cloud-to-cloud (not very common)

Cloud-to-air (not very common)

Intra-cloud: Flashes are redistributing the charge within the cloud

Cloud-to-ground: These flashes are very common and are able to cause
severe damage.

Ground-to-cloud: These rare flashes originate from the ground and are
observed from tall buildings.

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Energy of a lightning strike

Power: > 1 MW
Temperature: 50,000 deg F
up to 400 kA (200 kA accepted upper
Current (max):
limit)
Current (rise time): 200 kA/s
Current (average peak): 35 kA
Voltage (rise time): 12 kV/s
Duration: 300 s
Channel length: 5 km
Current (continuous): 93% of strikes are > 10 kA

1.3. Lightning Impact

Damages
Lightning is the direct cause of losses exceeding hundreds of millions of dol-
lars each year worldwide. Damage due to lightning includes equipment loss,
electronic component degradation, organizational disruption (data corruption,
data loss), loss of operation, and risk to personnel. This leads to tremendous
costs, which include replacement of equipment, staff overtime, problem solv-
ing time, checking of security systems, and recovery of lost or destroyed data.
All these ultimately lead to production delay and consequently customer dis-
satisfaction.

However, damage can be avoided if an adequate protection against the direct

and indirect effects of lightning on power or signal cables is installed properly.

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Direct strikes inject rapid-rising impulse currents of tens of hundreds kA into a

structure. A portion of this power spikes flows into the building through electric
power and signal lines. The most common consequences of the damaging
effect of direct strikes are resistive heating, arcing, and burning. Even when
lightning does not strike the structure directly, damage to equipment inside the
building can occur. Due to coupling effects, lightning striking as far as 2-3 km
away from the structure can still cause dangerously high transient voltages or
surge currents on electrical systems.

Indirect strikes are the main cause for damage, degradation, or destruction of
electrical systems. These types of damages are the direct consequence of the
resistive, inductive, and capacitive coupling effects, describe in chapter 4.1.

Lightning Frequency of Occurrence

Professional weather observers classify the severity of convective activity
using the frequency of occurrence of thunderstorms. Globally, 2000 on-going
thunderstorms cause about 10 billion flashes every year, which are about 100
lightning strikes to earth each second. Tall structures may be struck an aver-
age of 10 times per year.

Thunderstorms in the Asia Pacific Region

Number of thunderstorms per year is the Asia/Pacific region:

Indonesia 180-260
Malaysia 180-260
Singapore 160-220
China 100-160
Thailand 90-200
Philippines 90-140
Hong Kong 90-100
Australia 5-80
The Southeast Asian region has the world’s highest thunderstorm rate per
year. Its proximity to the Equator results in a hot and humid climate all year
around. These climatic conditions are favorable for the development of thun-
derclouds producing lightning.

Thunderstorms can occur throughout the year but they are most frequent dur-
ing with the Northeast Monsoons (April and May) and during the Southwest
Monsoons (October and November). Over land, thunderstorms mainly de-
velop in the afternoon and evening hours while over the sea, thunderstorms
are more frequent at night.

Thunderstorms in America

Number of thunderstorms per year in the American continent:

USA 5 -100
Brazil 40-200

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Areas such as the Florida Peninsula and the Southeastern plains of Colorado
have the highest thunderstorm frequency of occurrence in the United States.

In South America, countries closest to the Equator are the most prone to a
high rate of severe thunderstorms.

Thunderstorms in Europe

Number of thunderstorms per year in Europe:

Europe 5-50

1.4. Lightning Protection for process plants

In today’s industrial world, process plants are increasingly controlled by com-
puterized systems. And the various power and bus cables entering and exiting
a plant can influence each other. Conditions such as these can result in sig-
nals that can potentially damage electrical devices.

In order to ensure a safe and uninterrupted process, complete protection for

all interconnected electrical equipment is necessary. Various protection de-
vices route surge currents to the local ground. To ensure an effective protec-
tion of the electrical equipment, the protection devices should be placed as
close to the equipment as possible. This rule applies especially to the equip-
ments responsible for the control of the main process. Any damage to this
equipment would lead to unplanned down time, resulting in production losses,
and subsequently unplanned costs.

Damage to field devices installed in remote or high risk areas can also have
disastrous consequences, since standard field devices are not designed to
withstand lightning-induced transient voltages or surge currents. Hence proper
surge protection for the remote field device should also be installed in addition
to protecting the HOST system.

Since lightning-induced signals show pulse characteristics, standard circuit

breakers or fuses are not able to sufficiently protect the electrical equipment.
The Surge Protection Barrier (SPB) from Pepperl+Fuchs is the best solution
possible. It can also be used for protection against other sources causing
transient voltages, such as devices changing voltage or current during switch-
ing events or exhibiting a non-linear behavior. These other sources can be
energy storing inductive loads, such as transformers, motors, and drives. They
can induce high transient voltages and surge currents on conductors that can
damage connected equipment.

Each electronic device in the bus loop should be protected with a SPB. Mount-
ing options vary as the SPB is either installed on a separate mounting rail (if
required in a field enclosure) or directly fitted (screwed) to the device.

Important: The SPB is not able to withstand a direct lightning strike and will be damaged.

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2. Fieldbus Introduction
Fieldbus technologies have gained momentum in process control applications
in the recent years; and the trend indicates that fieldbus is going to be the key
technology for many years to come.

Particularly, Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus PA are widely used for process
control applications due to their simplicity and ease-of-use; and they also carry
both communications and power on the same twisted-pair of fieldbus cable,
hence reducing the installation complexity.

International standard IEC 61158-2 specifies all the physical layer characteris-
tics these fieldbus systems. A fieldbus segment is comprised of a HOST inter-
face, a fieldbus power conditioner, fieldbus wiring blocks mounted inside a
field junction box which connect all the fieldbus devices on spurs to the field-
bus segment trunk, and the fieldbus field devices. Although the standard al-
lows for up to 32 devices per segment (including the HOST system), the num-
ber of fieldbus devices depends on the HOST system interface and system
scan time requirements. Hence, the number of fieldbus devices varies from
generally up to 8 devices for control applications and up to 12 devices for
monitoring applications.

Further, there is a limitation to the number of devices in hazardous area appli-

cations determined by certain power supply types (e.g. FISCO based). Such
power supplies have limited voltage output which not only limits the number
devices but also requires careful selection of surge protection devices on the
bus cable in order to avoid further voltage drop. However, the limitation has
been overcome by the “High Power Trunk” concept (HPT), which enables the
fieldbus to carry sufficient voltage and current for up to 16 field devices, and
also eases surge protection deployment on the bus cables.

3. Surge Protection Basics

The main purpose of the Surge Protection Barrier is to limit induced transient
voltage over sensitive electrical equipment and to safely divert the surge cur-
rent to a controlled point to ground.

The surge protection barrier provides line-to-line (differential mode) and line-
to-earth (common mode) protection. This is achieved by integrating suitable
‘switching’ elements into the surge protection device and guaranteeing a
proper connection to ground.

The protection device must be able to respond extremely fast to high impulse
voltage and current. Since only one ‘switching’ element is not able to fulfill this
requirement, several switching stages are incorporated into the device. This is
called ‘hybrid circuit’ protection.

Gas Discharge Tubes represent the first switching stage. They are able to
withstand high voltage and current, but their slow response times can still
allow dangerously high energy levels to pass through. Therefore, a second
‘switching’ element, a silicon avalanche transient voltage suppresser (TVS)
diode, must be implemented to control the remaining energy levels. This diode
type responds to low voltage and current levels extremely fast, clamping the

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voltage to non-damaging levels, and diverting the surge current reliably to

ground. Both protection stages are decoupled via impedance (see Figure 7:
Hybrid circuit protection).

Figure 7: Hybrid circuit protection

Surge protection barriers must be able to withstand test pulses as described in

the international lightning standard IEC 60060-1.

IEC 60060-1 states that the test current pulse “has a shape increasing from
zero to peak value in a short period of time, and then decreases to zero either
exponentially or in the manner of a heavily-damped sine curve.” According to
IEC standards, surge protection barriers should withstand exponential type
current test pulses (see Figure 8: Lightning current test pulse).

Figure 8: Lightning current test pulse

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Following IEC 60060-1, SPBs for fieldbus signal lines must be able to divert at
least 10 test current pulses of 10 kA (8/20 µs) safely to ground, without dam-
aging the transition contacts to earth, the internal circuitry, and the SPB itself.

Important: Pepperl+Fuchs’ SPBs are in accordance to IEC 60060-1 and CCITT with a
nominal discharge current of 10 kA (8/20 µs) per lead.

4. Additional features required for Fieldbus Surge

Protection
In addition to providing surge protection to the bus systems, these protection
devices should also have further characteristics to be inline with fieldbus ap-
plications.

In line resistance must be low

Since Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus PA carry both power supply and
fieldbus communication signals on the same cable, any additional resistance
on the bus will have additional voltage drop, which may impact the trunk cable
distances. Hence, it is essential to have low series resistance on the surge
protection devices.

Higher bandwidth
To have the fieldbus signals pass through the surge protection barriers without
any distortions, the capacitance ( line/line and line/earth) has must be as low
as possible ( e.g 1nF), and hence the response time will be as fast as possible
( e.g <1ns line/line)

Pluggable feature
It is preferred to have the fieldbus surge protection devices as fixed base units
with pluggable surge protection modules to enable easy maintenance. When
the pluggable surge protection module is removed, the fieldbus signal will not
be interrupted, and hence does not affect the signal path in the event that
replacement of protection module is required.

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5. General Fieldbus Architecture

Architecture

Figure 9: Typical fieldbus architecture

The primary elements that make a fieldbus segment are:

Control system (HOST/Master) which generates the communication sig-

nal and controls the segment operation

Fieldbus power conditioner which provides impedance matching and
power supply for the field devices on the segment

Fieldbus wiring blocks mounted inside a field junction box which connect
all the fieldbus devices on spurs to the fieldbus segment trunk, and
hence to the control system along with the power conditioner

Field devices that interface between the physical process and the control
system, converting process variables into digital fieldbus signals

Fieldbus cable with defined impedance characteristics to interconnect the
above elements

6. Surge Protection for the Fieldbus system

A surge induced onto the fieldbus cables (e.g trunk cable) may travel either
toward the control system or toward the field devices via the field junction box.

Or a surge may be induced onto the spur cables and travel either toward the
field devices or toward the control system via the field junction box.

Hence, all these paths should be adequately protected by using a proper

surge protection device to avoid any damage to the fieldbus system compo-
nents.

Surge protection should be employed at various stages to prevent damage to

the system.

Surge protection at control room protects the control system against

surges induced on the trunk connection, coming from the field

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Surge protection at the trunk connection of field junction box protects the
field side against surges induced between control room and field junction
box

Surge protection at the spur side of the field junction box protects the
electronics against surges induced between the junction box and the field
devices

Surge protection at the field devices protects the field devices against
surges induced between field junction box and field device.

Figure 10: Fieldbus architecture where everything is protected against surges

7. Surge Protection for the Control Room Elements

lements

Figure 11: Surge Protection of control room equipment

Since the trunk cable normally runs outside of the control room, any surge that
is induced on the trunk cable may choose a direction toward the control room.
Therefore, a surge protection device has been installed at the trunk near the

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power conditioner. This SPB will prevent damage to the control room ele-
ments such as the power conditioners, the fieldbus control system, and even
fieldbus terminators. Also it will protect the bulk power supply that provides
power to the fieldbus power conditioners.

Care should be taken to calculate the voltage drop on the cable, and hence
the equivalent cable distances of the trunk cable due to the series impedance
of the surge protection devices. The Pepperl+Fuchs surge protection device
DP-LBF-1.34 will reduce the cable distance by approximately 80meters if
Type A fieldbus cable with 44 ohms/km is used. However, such cable drops
can be overcome by the using a power conditioner that provides higher volt-
age outputs.

8. Surge Protection inside the Field Junction Box

Since “chickenfoot” topology is preferred in fieldbus applications, the most

common method of connecting fieldbus devices on a fieldbus spur to the
fieldbus segment trunk is to connect via suitable wiring blocks. These wiring
blocks are usually placed very close the field devices to minimize the spur
cable length. The wiring blocks contain electronic circuits built inside to pro-
vide necessary short-circuit current limitation and hazardous area parameters
limitations. Hence any malfunction on the electronics of the wiring block can
lead to loss of fieldbus communications and possibly process integrity.

Protection of the electronics circuits inside the wiring blocks is thus essential
for a reliable installation. The wiring blocks are usually mounted inside suitable
junction boxes fabricated of either stainless steel or glass reinforced polyester
material. A surge protection device is installed on the trunk input line inside
the junction boxes to protect the wiring blocks from damage due to a surge.

Additional surge protection devices may be installed on the spur lines of the
wiring blocks if the spur lines exceed certain lengths (e.g. more than 30 me-
ters, as a rule of thumb)

Figure 12: Surge Protection of field junction box

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9. Surge Protection for Field Devices

In most cases the fieldbus devices are exposed to external climate and proc-
ess environments, since they are normally installed onto tanks, vessels, pipes,
and other process structures. The spur cables that interconnect the field de-
vices from the junction boxes may be routed alongside power cables, high
frequency cables, or etc, Or they may be installed at some elevation (e.g. high
up on storage tanks) which may also introduce surge current into the spur
cables, especially when the shield cables are not properly grounded. This
cause damage to the field devices if not protected properly.

Good design practice would dictate that surge suppression components be

installed inside the field device’s electronics as part of electromagnetic com-
patibility (EMC) standards; however these components do not adequately
arrest the real surge that may be as high as 10kA.

Even if surge protection devices are installed inside the junction box’s field
side, due to the cable distance between the junction box and the field device,
the surge currents may be inductively coupled onto spur cable, and thus the
field device. As a rule of thumb, whenever the cable length between the junc-
tion box and the field device is greater than 10m in the vertical direction or
greater than 30m in the horizontal direction, a surge protection device may be
required to be located directly at the field device to protect the field device as
shown in the below picture.

If the field device comes with a threaded wiring compartment, the surge pro-
tection device could be directly threaded into the device. Otherwise, a small
junction box may be required to install the surge protection device to connect
it to the field device as shown below.

Figure 13: Surge Protection of field devices

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10. Surge Protection in Hazardous Areas

reas
10.1 Surge Protection for Zone 2/Div 2 Non Arcing / Non
incendive / Ex ic applications
Zone 2 installation can be differentiated between the following explosion pro-
tection possibilities:

Non-arcing or non-incendive; every explosion protection method except

Ex nL, Ex ic and non-incendive field wiring. For this type of application
please refer to chapter “Ex nA or non-incendive”

Ex nL, Ex ic and non-incendive field wiring when all field devices have a
safety parameter of Ui ≥ 32 V. Typically, this is the case when the field-
bus power supply modules HD2-FBPS-1.500 or HD2-FBPS-1.25.360 are
used. For this type of application please refer to chapter “Ex nL/Ex ic
without voltage limitation on the trunk”.

Ex nL, Ex ic and non-incendive field wiring when all field devices do have
a safety parameter of Ui ≤ 32 V. Typically, this is the case when the field-
bus power supply modules HD2-FBPS-1.23.500 or HD2-FBPS-1.17.500
are used. For this type of application please refer to chapter “Ex nL/Ex ic
with voltage limitation on the trunk

Ex nA or non-
non-incendive
When installing equipment in a potentially hazardous area, the equipment
must be explosion protected. In Zone 2 or Class I, Div 2 this means that under
normal operation conditions the equipment is not able to cause an ignition of
the ignitable surrounding atmosphere.

This requirement applies to surge protectors as well. The explosion protection

methods Ex n or non-incendive contain several different possibilities. One
possibility is Ex nA, non-arcing.

Figure 14: Surge Protection for non-incendive applications

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Figure 14 shows a possibility to realize surge protection in a Zone 2 or in a

Class I, Div 2 environment when any appropriate explosion protection method
is used, except Ex nL, Ex ic and non-incendive field wiring.

The surge protectors are carried out in flame proof enclosure Ex d.

Ex nL/Ex ic without
without voltage limitation on the trunk
trunk
If live maintenance is required on the field device, the explosion protection
methods Ex nL, Ex ic or non-incendive field wiring can be used. The differ-
ence is that these explosion protection methods include lead breakage and
short circuit as a normal operating condition. Therefore it is possible to con-
nect or disconnect an instrument under voltage.

It is important for these kinds of explosion protection methods that the power
source limits the maximum amount of energy provided to the instruments un-
der normal operating conditions in accordance with the relevant standards.

In the following example, the energy limitation is provided in the Segment

Protector. The Segment Protector limits:

Output voltage available on the spur to UO/VOC ≤ 32 V

Output current available on a spur to IO/ISC ≤ 70 mA

Figure 15: Surge Protection without voltage limitation at the trunk

Since the trunk cable is not energy limited, an Ex d surge protector (flame
proof enclosure) can be used. The spur in this example can be Ex nL, Ex ic or
non-incendive field wiring; it must be rated for at least this level of protection.
For that reason the Intrinsic Safety versions of the surge protectors are used
as indicated in figure 15.

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Ex nL/Ex ic with
with voltage limitation on the trunk
Many instruments available on the market are NOT rated for Ui /Vmax ≥ 32 V.
This requires additional voltage limitation to meet the requirements of Ex nL,
Ex ic, or non-incendive field wiring. Typically this safe voltage limitation will be
done in the fieldbus power supply by using:

HD2-FBPS-1.23.500 fieldbus power supply module with

o UO/VOC = 24 V (for instrument with for Ui /VOC ≥ 24 V)

HD2-FBPS-1.17.500 fieldbus power supply module with
o UO/VOC = 17.5 V (for instrument with for Ui /VOC ≥ 17.5 V) or
FISCO ic rated instruments.

Figure 16: Surge Protection with voltage limitation at the trunk

Since the voltage is now safely limited, the Intrinsic Safety versions of the
surge protectors must be used at the trunk. These surge protectors are rated
Intrinsically Safe until the rated current on the trunk is 500 mA or less. This is
ensured by using the above mentioned fieldbus power supply modules.

10.2. Surge Protection for Explosion proof / Increased

safety applications
The “Ex d” protection method actually allows an explosion inside the housing
but the energy of this explosion is not capable to ignite the atmosphere out-
side the housing. This requires all the components to be certified as Ex d
components.

In this application, most likely the field junction box and the field devices might
be placed directly in the Zone 1 hazardous area and all the fieldbus compo-
nents in the field area shall be certified with Ex d, and hence the surge protec-
tion device shall also carry a similar Ex d certification to enable the devices to
be placed directly in the Zone1 environment as shown in the figure below.

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Figure 17: Surge Protection for Ex d application

10.3. Surge Protection for Zone1 Intrinsically Safe

applications
applications
Intrinsically Safe protection methods like FISCO and ENTITY limit the avail-
able energy down to a level which is not capable to ignite the surrounding
atmosphere. Ex ib is also Intrinsically Safe when a failure occurs; and Ex ia is
also Intrinsically Safe when two independent failures occur at the same point
in time. Ex ib can be used for Zone 1 applications, Ex ia can be used for both
Zone 0 and Zone 1 applications. All field devices shall be either certified as
per FISCO or ENTITY concepts.

In this situation there are two ways to achieve an Intrinsically Safe solution.

Full Intrinsically Safe segments. Intrinsic Safety begins at the power con-
ditioner output; and hence the fieldbus trunk and the spur lines are Intrin-
sically Safe.

Mixed Ex e and Ex i solution (High Power Trunk concept). Here the field-
bus trunk line is “increased safety” and the spur lines are Intrinsically
Safe.

In this application, most likely the field junction box and the field devices might
be placed directly in the Zone 1 hazardous area and all the fieldbus devices in
the field shall be certified with FISCO or ENTITY. The wiring block shall be
completely Intrinsically Safe or a mix of Ex e (trunk) and Ex i (spur) depending
upon the concept used. The surge protection devices for the Intrinsic Safety
application should be certified with Ex ia certification that provides at least
500V isolation from the fieldbus segment to the ground.

However the most commonly used approach for the Intrinsically Safe solution
is to use an “increased safety” trunk and Intrinsically Safe spurs using Field-
Barriers.

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Figure 18: Surge Protection for High Power Trunk application

In the situation using an Intrinsically Safe trunk solution, both surge protectors
must be rated Ex i.

11. Grounding and Shielding of Surge Protection

devices
For any Surge Protection installation, it must be ensured that proper ground-
ing is installed at both the control room and in the field to direct the surge cur-
rent effectively to the ground system.

Special conditions for mounting the intrinsically safe Version

DP-LBF-I1.34 within Hazardous Areas.
The connection between the Surge Protector and the local ground must have
a minimum cross section of 4 mm. All connections with the ground must be
redundant. During installation and operation, it must be ensured that direct or
indirect grounding of the shield causes no danger. If it is necessary to install
the shield bonding separately for operational reasons, indirect grounding of
the shield is recommended.

11.1. Direct Shield Grounding (DP

(DP-
DP-LBF-
LBF-1.34, DP-
DP-LBF-
LBF-
I1.34)
The shield wire of the fieldbus cable will be connected to the earth/ground
terminal of the surge protectors as shown in the figure below.

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Figure 19: Direct shield grounding

11.2. Indirect Shield Earthing (DP

(DP-
DP-LBF-
LBF-1.34, DP-
DP-LBF-
LBF-I1.34)
If for any reason, the shield wire of the fieldbus cable is isolated from the
surge protector earth, a GAS tube shall be inserted in to the base of the surge
protection device. In this situation, the shield wire of the fieldbus cable will go
through the surge protection device without being connected to its ground.
(e.g via its DIN Rail). Hence it must be decided either to connect the shield
wire to the ground at the control room or at the field. Normally, it is recom-
mended to install the ground at the control room or the source of power for the
trunk or spur is located.

Figure 20: Indirect shield grounding

20100412_Surge Protection for Fieldbus System 12.04.2010

 Application Note Surge Protection for Fieldbus System

Page 20 of 20

12. Standards Conformity

Surge Protection devices conform to following standards

Directive conformity

Electromagnetic compatibility Directive

EN 61326
89/336/EC
Directive 94/9 EC EN 50014, EN 50018

Standard conformity

Electromagnetic compatibility NAMUR NE 21

Protection degree IEC/EN 60529
Fieldbus standard IEC 61158-2
Climatic conditions IEC 60721
Surge protection IEC 61643-21

Mounting

DP-LBF-1.34, DP-LBF-I1.34 DIN Rail

F*-LBF-D1.32, F*-LBF-I1.32 FS: M20 x 1.5 thread
FN: 1/2"NPT thread

Protection Degree IP 20

Authors Arasu Thanigai

Product Business Development Manager
Pepperl+Fuchs Singapore
Telephone: +65 6777 9539
E-mail: arasu@sg.pepperl-fuchs.com

Reviewers Thomas Klatt

Business Development Manager
Pepperl+Fuchs, Mannheim
Telephone: +49 621 776 2130
E-mail: tklatt@de.pepperl-fuchs.com

20100412_Surge Protection for Fieldbus System 12.04.2010