Characteristics of electrostatic discharges from intermediate bulk container materials

In this work, we have studied experimentally electrostatic discharges from flexible or rigid intermediate bulk container (FIBC or RIBC, respectively) materials charged to both polarities. Four different kinds of materials were investigated, including woven polypropylene (PP) fabric, smooth-surfaced polypropylene sheet, smooth-surfaced polyethylene (PE) sheet and smooth-surfaced nylon sheet for comparison. Discharge peak current, charge transfer and distance from the surface at which a discharge occurred, with no earthed backplane, were measured over a range of surface potential values. According to the results, negative polarity discharges gave higher peak current and charge transferred values than positive polarity discharge of the same surface potential. The distance at which the discharge occurred increased with surface potential as expected. However, peak current and charge values were relatively constant over a range of surface potential.