The definitive EMP effects thread

*** LONG POST WARNING***

*edit warning - I'm making sure this is contentually accurate. I'm changing it as it evolves.*

Many of you have been chattering in regards to the book 'lights out' which is generously provided free online for our reading pleasure. The topic (for those who are not aware) is that a series of massive EMP-based nuclear strikes knock out a great deal of 'versatile solutions for modern living' (to quote fight club).

That being said, there's alot of misinformation about EMP both in the book AND in online forums. This is not to say that people are purposely giving bad info. Just that the effects are poorly understood. The goal of this thread is to provide definitive effects of EMP. Since EMP is a widely debated phenomenon, feel free to disagree - just make sure you can point to evidence. Likewise, I'm trying to point to evidence with this document so that it's contentually accurate.

I'm going to first give you a few links for your own enjoyment to which you can use to get a background on what I'm going to talk about.. Warning. I'm not an engineer. Just a geek. Geeks and engineers are like minded but I may make mistakes so feel free to correct me. This is (to the best of my knowledge) correct information.

First:
Senate briefing on EMP effects: http://www.americandefenseforces.com/empspeech.pdf
This should be considered the most up to date document though most of our knowledge of EMP effects has remained the same since the early 80's.


Nuclear War Survival skills: http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p913.htm
Nuclear EMP effects: http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm
Good info from Aussurv: http://www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/empprotection.htm
Good info from AR: http://www.alpharubicon.com/basicnbc/empfacts.html

What is an emp? There are a couple of ways it is caused but basically the radiation strips off the electrons causing a massive wave front. It can occur locally (SREMP) for several miles, at high altitude (HEMP) for several hundred miles or in space to span several thousand miles (if not the planet). Each one has moderately different effects, mostly because of the earth's magnetic field.

One interesting thing is that EMPs are line of sight.

Further, another interesting thing is that most vehicles may not be killed. This may be in that they operate as a sort of mini-faraday cage. Small electronics with cables or antennae less than 30 inches in length should not fry. This is said because the cables/antennae are basically giant signal concentrators which can cause massive power spikes.

Planes are an odd bird in need of more research. Basically the aluminum skin and frame allow for the energy to pass around most of it, however apparently electronics are vulnerable. Now the nice thing is that aircraft electronics are required to be shielded against lightning (which is many million volts but concentrated on one area versus across a broad wavefront). For now I offer two links for which to supplement this:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel1/15/2584/00078349.pdf?arnumber=78349

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/2003FF/lightning/flight.html

How much power does an emp generate? Well, from what I remembered the starfish EMP generated 5 kilovolts per meter (kv/m). Apparently there is now technology to hit around 500 kv/m and upwards of 4,000 amps per meter. These are extremely short bursts but generally afterwards there is a sustained burst which can really stress-test even shielded equipment.

Can an emp kill me like lightning? No. Not unless you're near something that can concentrate the signal. Like next to a cell phone tower or on a metal girder. *edit - don't forget pacemakers or other internal electronics might be affected*
Logically it makes sense that getting hit with a few hundred thousand volts/amps should kill you but I can't find any evidence to support this.

What WILL get killed? Probably everything outdoors, particularly communications related. Think TV, satellite(s), cell phone, radio, etc. Phone/Power grids would most likely be completely overloaded due to their long copper wires. Internal electronics tied to the building's power supply will likely fry, moreso if they are powered on. If they're powered off it provides some measure of protection (along with saving you some green on your power bill).

What may not get killed? Small isolated electronics which are battery powered with short antennae. Think radios, cell phones, portable video game systems, tv's, pdas, etc.

Never hurts to plan for the worst though.

I'll post more as it comes.

Ah, so my iPod will survive. Cool, tunes in the wreckage.

Hmmm, on second thought, putting all my survival documents on the iPod might be worthwhile...

-Blast

Also - dc motors will be relatively unaffected so if you can get a hand-crank charger for said item you should be good to go ... you can endure TEOTWAWKI in style

One thing we've been fighting at work is Tin Whiskers, were pretty much EMP proof but Tin Whiskers have been taking out tons of our equipment. That's why my primary navigation equipment is a military Cammenga compass and map,backup is a GPS. I've seen a lot of GPS satellite problems at work and I love my GPS's, I still always carry a compass and a map.


http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/failures/index.htm

http://www.uscav.com/Productinfo.aspx?productID=7587&TabID=1&CatID=5230

Name Launch Date First Satellite Control Processor Failure Redundant Satellite Control Processor Failure
Complete Losses
GALAXY VII [PanAmSat] 27 October 1992 13 June 1998 22 November 2000
GALAXY IV [PanAmSat] 24 June 1993 (not caused by 'tin whiskers') 19 May 1998
SOLIDARIDAD 1 [SatMex] 19 November 1993 28 April 1999 27 August 2000
GALAXY IIIR [PanAmSat] 15 December 1995 21 April 2001 15 January 2006
Partial Losses
OPTUS B1 13 August 1992 21 May 2005 Still Operational
DBS-1 [DirecTV] 17 December 1993 4 July 1998 Still Operational
PAS-4 [PanAmSat] 3 August 1995 3rd quarter 1998 Still Operational
DirecTV 3 (DirecTV) 9 June 1995 4 May 2002 Still Operational

Military Failures

1.Military Airplane: G. Davy, "Relay Failure Caused by Tin Whiskers", Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems Technical Article, October 2002
2.Patriot Missile: Anoplate WWW Site: Suspected tin whisker related problems (Fall 2000)
3.Phoenix Air to Air Missile: L. Corbid, "Constraints on the Use of Tin Plate in Miniature Electronic Circuits", Proceedings 3rd International SAMPE Electronics Conference, pp. 773-779, June 20-22, 1989.
4.F-15 Radar: B. Nordwall, "Air Force Links Radar Problems to Growth of Tin Whiskers", Aviation Week and Space Technology, June, 20, 1986, pp. 65-70
5. U.S. Missile Program: J. Richardson, and B. Lasley, "Tin Whisker Initiated Vacuum Metal Arcing in Spacecraft Electronics," Proceedings 1992 Government Microcircuit Applications Conference, Vol. XVIII, pp. 119 - 122, November 10 - 12, 1992.
6. U.S. Missile Program: K Heutel and R. Vetter, "Problem Notification: Tin Whisker growth in electronic assemblies", Feb. 19, 1988, memorandum

I agree with a lot of your post, but what makes you think that an EMP isn't radiation? Turn on a small battery powered radio and put it in your closet. If the radio stops getting a signal in the closet then the closet is effectively a faraday cage. I doubt that your radio signal strength will drop even 1 dB.

Ah shoot, forgot to delete that part. Yeah I had a part about a garage blocking signals but in double checking myself found that really wood/plastic offers almost no protection. I then deleted it and said you know what, I should just stick with the facts and not my presumptions. But I forgot to remove the part you found. Good catch

Cool. EMP is basically a broadband radio wave in a very short high amplitude pulse. Most of the energy is below 30 kHz making it HF, but the frequency extends into VHF IIRC. Coupling this to electronics is much easier with a long wire antenna such as your home's wiring, but there are a lot of unknowns. Unplugging some systems may be enough isolation, but with today's soft switches, simply turning an item off would probably be inadequate.

Yeah the unknowns are what make this tough. Alot of it depends on how many kv/m are dropped, a/m, what height it's exploded at, etc.. I just found the full report to the senate briefing, I'm going to post it. It's very interesting and should be considered to have the most up to date information. I guess in the end worst case scenario you end up with something similiar to lights out. Best case is more like cars survive, work, and minor electronics survive as well.

I wouldn't bet on small electronics surviving. You talk about it like it is on one wavelength, which it isn't. The EMF leaked from a bad fan motor is a lot lower than a destruct EMP's, and that can damage ICs.

And actually, a strong enough EMP can kill you. Now, realistically, being in a field that strong means you've probably been evaporated by the fireball, but if you pump energy into a conductor, be it metal which makes up the important parts of electronic equipment or the water that makes up the important parts of your neural equipment, you will make a charge which can interfere or overload the system. Theoretically, you could overload a mammal's CNS with a large enough pulse, even if all you do is interfere with the heartbeat. The the key question is is it possible to make an EM pulse that impressive without a physical blast or more energetic radiation, though.

And herein lies the problems. While it makes sense to me that all small electronics, cars, etc would die... and that people could be fried by this giant EMP ... the experts have a slightly different story to tell. So I tend to agree with them. In the case of the people dying from an EMP, they say no, so I say no. In the case of vehicles, they say overall they're pretty ok against EMP, so I am repeating that information.

As to why? I don't know. Personally I think that people should be succeptible to EMP. But everywhere I've read says that it's not a danger. Of course as you mentioned to be hit by it, you're going to suffer all the other nasty effects. EMP's are effective on a SREMP out to the 2psi overpressure range. That's a looooong distance.

Another issue to consider is in-band vs out of band equipment. An AM/FM radio is in-band and it has a real antenna. The EMP doesn't need to couple through the powerline, it can enter through the antenna. IIRC both an FM/AM radios RF and IF frquencies are in-band to an EMP so it's an easy target.

But talking about losing small electronics is really trivial compared to losing the power grid. We can all hide small cheap radios and other electronics (laptop computers) as back-ups, but when the grid goes down because those big-ass transformers have been fried, we'll all be living off grid for a long long time.

I'm thinking about this...a Faraday cage needs to be grounded...and it also doesn't allow EM signals to pass through...I think cars and planes fail on both counts. Well, a car is grounded but not well grounded. But I can definitely make a cell phone call from inside each vehicle, so EM can pass in and out.

Cars and planes may survive EMP, but I think it's inaccurate to say it's because they are natural Faraday cages. The electronics on both are shielded against normal EM interference, and that may be enough to save them depending on the particular EMP.

Actually, aren't most open-mesh Faraday cages insufficient to protect against EMP, although they may be sufficient against things like lightning? I know I read that somewhere.

Since most of the EMP power is below 30KHz, open mesh should work, as long as it meets other faraday cage requirements. I've heard different theories on grounding, I'm not sure a faraday cage needs to be grounded to protect the contents.

I was thinking some more...if a live powerline that falls on your car doesn't electrocute the occupant, is that because of a Faraday cage effect specifically, or because of the charge simply being channelled through the car body to the ground, which sounds similar perhaps to a Faraday cage but is not technically the same thing?

I mean, in a true Faraday cage, doesn't the interior of the cage technically have zero charge? And yet we're warned that if we're inside a car that a power line falls on, not to touch anything metal inside the car. That would seem to violate a characteristic of a Faraday cage, wouldn't it?

OK, now I'm thinking too much about this.

Did I remember this formula correctly? So, 30 KHz would be a wavelength of...10,000 m? So a mesh with openings spaced less than 10,000 m apart should protect/attentuate EMP? Did I do that right?

Well, in that case, practically any enclosed space made of some conductor, like a car or plane, would act as a Faraday cage against EMP. Wait, then we're right back where we started!

When listening to experts who have a new revelation that contradicts what has been the generally agreed upon answer to a question for 20+ years, uhmm... Yeah, I want to know who signs their pay check, and I want it proof read.

I'm saying that because my track in college was computers and electronics, and I had profs who had either been in the space program or worked on defense contracts who agreed with everything I've always learned about EMP. This flies in the face of it, particularly when you realize that we are deploying non-nuclear EMP devices and the effects are slowly becoming declassified and emperical data supports the general consensus.

Something to think about. Modern transistors and IC's are a lot more complicated than they used to be. A simple transistor is no longer a simple transistor but inside that package contains all sorts of protection, over voltage, surge, over current, thermal, short circuit, etc. So while they may be smaller than older ones they have a lot more robustness.
Vehicles are the same way, even though they have a dozen computers they also have extra protection. Nearly every device in my truck is protected by three levels of fuses for example. Then there are more grounds, I've counted over 30 ground points and don't even have the complete schematics for mine. So they do act somewhat as a farady cage. Then the modern tires are somewhat conductive to keep the vehicle grounded as well.

Not to deviate from the topic but i just read this article about the recent solar burst that apparently effected all GPS units (to a varying degree) on the sun side of the earth.





sorry for my ignorance but is a solar burst similar to EMP?


http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/04/05/gps.solar.ap/index.html

Same thing.

So if I get this right tin whiskers is like having metal stalactites build up by electroplating and (I'm assuming) some sort of self organization until they contact another surface and short out?

A Faraday cage does not need to be grounded. It's not the same thing as a lightening rod.

It depends on the wavelength of the signal. Cell phones use very short wavelengths so their signal can penetrate through small holes.

People here are saying that a military EMP would have much longer wavelengths that would be blocked. I don't know if that's true. Also, I'd be wary about extrapolating experience gained from EMPs that were mere side-effects of a nuke, to EMPs that were specifically designed as weapons in the own right. There may be ways to put the energy into short wavelengths to cause maximum electronic damage.

Ahhh, some of that long-ago reading on EMP is coming back. Yes, you're absolutely correct. I forget what they were called, but there are EMP-specific weapons tuned to much higher frequencies, like into the microwave region, if I recall correctly.

They're called High-power microwave (HPM) and are one of several directed energy weapon technologies, none mature as far as I know.

It's hard to respond without sounding confrontational. Believe me, I don't want to appear that way so please try to understand. My goal with this document is to factualize alot of the information. Though I realize my intial portrayal was less than ideal (having reread it out sounds very chest-thumpy ish so I may reword it shortly). I just want to make a thread with 'the facts' about emp in it. So if you can point me to the evidence, I'll post it. It's that simple.

Here's an interesting video to show how the frame of a car gives electricity a better path to follow than through the driver:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cars/lightning-strikes-car-with-man-in-it-243268.php

Make sure you watch it all the way to the end. Note the car starting and all electronics functioning.

Does this mean that an EMP will have the same thing, absolutely not. I'm simply illustrating a point in regards to the frame of the car operating in a designated fashion.

When starfish occurred, you only hear about wide scale effects. You hear about issues with items hooked to phone lines (burgular alarms), radio towers, street lamps, etc. You don't hear about personal radios/electronics or vehicles being affected. Mostly they had some minor interference but that was all. There are two possible explainations I can think of for this:

1) The relative lack of sophistication of the electronic components involve resulted in an inadvertent resistance to EMP.

2) That smaller electronics with antenna less than 30 inches didn't concentrate enough energy to receive significant damage.

So anyways, I'm still evolving this document. Sorry if I came off sounding like a know it all

I would say your research and mine are in conflict becuase we are looking for different scenarios. You are looking at it as a problem with very tight and fine parameters that can be defeated with finess. I approach it as a problem with much wider parameters that is going to attack using brute force of a degree that would make the old Red Army look... subtle.

While what you are talking about is accurate for certain weapons that are designed to generate EMP as thier main action (although I do question the <30" and antenna and fuel injector survival), a phenomena (man made or natural) that produces an EMP as a side effect frequently is creating a spike of noise on all frequencies. So I don't worry about a given frequency, or it's harmonics, I hit stuff close to what you are set up to filter and try to spike it that way. And yes, most phenomena have a range of frequencies they like, but if you are only worried about one risk factor you end up being unprotected against others. (And I know about that- I've killed components that way on the bench in a couple of signals classes.)

These phenomena are also much more powerful those created by a dedicated EMP generator. EMP generating weapons are designed to reduce the effective range, so as not to endanger your own forces and to minimize collateral damage. But if I want to wipe out everything in a country, the most cost effective way is a high altitude detonation of a multimegaton device. If I believe they are shielded for aspike of X amplitude based on their public reports of being sheilded for .5X, I choose a yield that will give me 1.5X amplitude. And it will be a lot less expensive than clean EMP generator. Nukes are cheap, the alternatives obnoxiously expensive in comparison.

If I pump enough power into a circuit fast enough, it is dead. If I can spike it faster than the protective components can burn out or throw, or just hit it with enough current to get the pulse to arc through those gaps, then the circuit is gone. And heck, even if it doesn't die, if the surge heats with wiring to the point that solder joins fail or insulation melts and things short out, the circuit has failed.

Objective accomplished. I like the analogy of the bullet proof vests when talking about EMP- yes, it stops some bullets, but not all bullets, and unless I hit your trauma plate, I can stab you through one. If you pulse it right (say, tuned to the length of your average mouse cable or the distance between high tension towers if want to hit electrical and communications landlines), or just brute force it, the shielding is done.

And I'm not trying to be arguementative. I might be sounding cranky, but I don't mean it- it's been the week of morons at work *crosses eyes*- please tell me your customers have a better clue than mine do. My questions about the information stem from it being, as I said, a bit at odds with everything I've ever learned from people who were engineers for NASA and the DOD back when we didn't think that electronics were the wizards wand that will solve all our problems.

If I had to take a guess as to why the components you mentioned weren't effected, either (a) it wasn't reported (huh, the radio's dead, I'll buy a new one) because people don't add it up and (b) a long antenna picks up a lot more signal than a short one, so the pulse on something plugged into the grid is going to be worse.

No, my customers are not more intelligent. I work for a high speed internet tech support company as a 'data coach'.

Not to derail my own thread but it's hard to top having someone argue with you that guam is part of the *continental* united states and that california was on another continent (along with being another country). The guy really believed it too. I can tell you stories that would make your brain bleed.

Anyways, like I said I'm not an engineer. I agree with your logic; I just would prefer to have it in some referenceable format. My goal with this document is contentual accuracy. If that means that everything is pretty well SOL, cool. I Just need to make sure that we have something I can point to with it.

Incidentally, I've already learned a few things, so it's working as intended

Simple rule of thumb- x might break it, 10X will really break it.

It's the old debate of armour vs warhead. You'll never be able to make shielding that can't be overloaded by making a bigger warhead. And the bigger bang is always more cost efficent. :P

I'm afraid the high point of my customer service this week was replying to "you people wrote the ******* program" was "well, you bought it two years ago and haven't had a problem before Vista."

Yeah, the boss didn't like that one.