Single shunt fault diagnosis in a resistive ladder

The problem of locating a single shunt fault in a uniform resistive ladder network is considered. A simple method, based on resistance measurements is proposed for the case where the total number of nodes is small and all of them are accessible. Two strategies are discussed for reducing the number of measurements when the number of nodes is large but all nodes are still accessible. When internal nodes are not accessible, it is shown that in theory, it is possible to locate the fault from two resistance measurements at the ports. However, when the number of nodes is large, and the fault is well inside the ladder, such a method is susceptible to large errors. Experimental results are given for some representative ladders.