Cable Shield Grounded At One End

Only

25 Jun 2018

Author: Larry West

Low Frequency RLC Model

Contributed by Larry West: (west_larrry@att.net)

The myths that (1) a cable shield grounded at one end only (single point
gnd, SPG) is really a shield and (2) that a shield grounded at both ends
creates an unwanted ground loop have been asinine EE folklore for
decades. Both are dead wrong. An SPG cable shield is a hi-pass filter to
magnetic fields and a lo-pass filter to electric fields with amplification at the
break frequency. Alleged ground loops exist before shields are considered.
A properly grounded shield simply does its job -
attenuate. Cable shielding and ground loops must be disassociated. People
with no knowledge are fictionalizing a problem they don’t understand.
Ground potential differences must be attacked with proper isolation
techniques not wrongheaded shielding. “Grounding” a cable shield is a
misnomer; cable shields should be “bonded” to the enclosures their cables
arefastened to.
 
A cable shield grounded at one end only (single point ground, SPG) is
depicted in Figure 1. Alsoshown isan electric field perpendicular to the
cable and a magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of thecable and its
image in a ground plane (both for maximum coupling). The figure shows a
coaxialcable however it is intended to represent any cable with any number
of shielded conductors.
 
Figure 2 is a simple RLC circuit model of the SPG shield coupled to an
electric field, E. There are four parameters associated with this coupling
model, the shield to groundplane capacitance, C2, the shield to shielded
wire capacitance, C1, the shield inductance, L1, and the shield resistance,
R3. For the purposes of this exercise, the parameters have been chosen to
be representative of a 15m long cable that has a quarter wave resonance
at 1MHz. Both loads are 1kΩ. The electric field couples to the line through
the line to ground capacitance as a Thevenin equivalent source, VOC =
E·h, where h is the height of the line above the groundplane. Other
parameters like wire resistance have been suppressed because they are
not part of the shield RLC model and less than the loads. The shield
resistance, R3, has been increased so that the resonant Q-factor is Q ≈ 10,
the most usually seen. It is difficult to model actual losses analytically
therefore the Q-factor has been used to arrive at a shield resistance.
 
Figure 3 is the same RLC model of an SPG shield coupled to a magnetic
field, B, with the voltage, V OC = iω·l·h·B, where l is the length of the
shield.
 
Figure 4 is the combined results of the two coupling models. The effect of
the SPG shield is exactly what the RLC model suggests; that is, the SPG
shield is a low pass filter for magnetic fields and a high pass filter to electric
fields. The filters’ break points are both at the frequency corresponding to
the shield length being one quarter wavelength. The SPG shield is
therefore not a shield at all. Shielding effects are orders of magnitude
below these curves. The last point is that the
SPG resonates so that the induced signal is amplified, not attenuated, at
the shield’s resonant frequency. This model is a low frequency model
however all of the relevant parameters are included.
 
The multitude of app notes and articles on this subject that recommend
grounding the shield at one end only misrepresent the physics of shielding
and falsely ascribe a ground loop to the shield where the circuit itself was
part of the original ground loop. Cable shielding and ground loops must be
disassociated. Grounding the shield at both ends attenuates the coupling to
the shielded wires by approximately the ratio of load current to shield
current, SA ≈ Iload/Ishield ≈ ZT·l/2·Zload,
where ZT is the shield transfer impedance, l is the length, and Zload is the
load resistance of both loads. As an example, a cable shield with a DC
resistance (and low frequency transfer impedance, ZT·l = Rdc) of 1Ω and
load resistances of 1kΩ will have a low frequency shield attenuation of
approximately 5·10-4 or 66dB.
The shields should be “bonded’ to the boxes at the ends of their respective
cables, not earth ground, building ground, or anything else. Military
standards like Mil-Std-188-124B and the FAA get it right. It’s time for
everyone else to also.
 
The following is litany of very bad advice from otherwise reputable
sources:
 
(1) EE Times, “Control System Grounding - Part 2: Ground Wiring, Shield
Grounds, and Power Supply Grounding, Shield Grounds”, Roger Hope,
Dave Harrold, and David Brown, 7/15/2008: A proper shield ground path is
to ground the shield at one end only.
(2) EDN, “Grounding and Shielding: No Size Fits All”, Martin Rowe, Senior
Technical Editor - August 1,2001; Never connect a shield to ground at both
ends. Doing so would create a ground loop.
(3) Analog Devices, Analog Dialogue 17-1, 1983, Alan Rich, “Shielding and
Guarding, How to Exclude Interference-Type Noise, What to Do and Why
to Do It – A Rational Approach”: Don’t connect both ends of the shield to
ground.
(4) Wikipedia, Shielded Cable: The common method to wire shielded
cables is to ground only the source end of the shield to avoid ground loops.
Wikipedia!!??
(5) LTC486 Data Sheet: The optional shields around the twisted pair help
reduce unwanted noise, andare connected to GND at one end.
(6) Maxim Integrated, TUTORIAL 2045, Understanding Common-Mode
Signals: For any shielded pair(s) carrying balanced signals, you should
connect the shield to ground at one end, usually the receiving end.
(7) web www.bobtech.ro, Wiring Guidelines for RS-485 Networks,
Application Note 001, Grounding: If shielded twisted pair cable is used… ,
the shield shall be connected to earth ground only at one end. (8) B & B
Electronics, RS-422 AND RS-485 APPLICATIONS EBOOK, Shielding: If
shielded cable is used, the shield should be grounded at one end only,
preferably to earth ground.
(9) Alpha Wire, www.newark.com/pdfs/techarticles/alphawire/ USC.pdf,
Understanding Shielded Cable:Ground the cable at one end. This
eliminates the potential for noise inducing ground loops.
(10) eeeic.eu/proc/papers/ 55. pdf , Cottbus University of Technology,
Germany & Wroc?aw University of Technology, Poland, Anke Fröbel,
“Cable Shielding to Minimize Electromagnetic Interference”, III. CABLE
SHIELD GROUNDING: If a shielded cable is used to connect two systems,
the shield has to be connected to a single ground reference. In order to
prevent that electromagnetic energy penetrates through the shield, the
outer surface of the shield has to be grounded. At low
frequencies for E-field excitation it is more efficient to ground both ends,
whereas for H-field excitation one end grounding has to be favored, since
this eliminates the formation of a current loop by the cable and the ground
plane. At high frequencies both ends grounded configurations avoids
resonances for E-field and H-field excitations. In practice one ground
connection is often preferred, since this avoids ground loops. However, for
short cables, at low frequencies, the voltages induced by EMI at both ends
of a coaxial cable become nearly equal and one end grounding
is needed for E-field as well as for H-field excitations. [I included this to
show how confused people are about this subject. The author tried to write
about shielding but only displayed his ignorance of the subject. He even got
the E-field and H-field shielding reversed.]
(11) www.calex.com/pdf/4ground_shield.pdf, This article was written for
CALEX by Mr. Ralph Morrison, President of INSTRUM and the author of
Grounding and Shielding Techniques in Instrumentation published by
Wiley; Grounding and Shielding: The input cable shield cannot be
grounded more than once. [With figures, only, Mr. Morrison shows the
other end of a cable shield connected to ground
through a 10MΩ resistor. “From the jaws of victory…”]