TEN350 The waveform that hijacked the IEC lightning standards

DR. HASSE, TC81 & THE IEC 62305 SERIES
the hijacking of a standard

10/350 Milestones and Zenith: The IEC 62305 lightning protection series

In 1993 the release of IEC 61024-1-1 marked a giant step forward in the international arena for the Hasse10/350 waveform. Its lightning parameters for impulse current, charge and specific energy were lifted straight out of the Hasse chart. But it was in 1995 that Hasse finally saw his hard work come to fruition when TC 81 released IEC 61312-1 naming, legitimizing and giving authority to the Hasse10/350 waveform. From then on everybody would KNOW that direct lightning could only be characterized by a 10/350 waveform. The party in Neumarkt that night must have been gleeful.

Second milestone was getting the 10/350 waveform incorporated into IEC 61643-1.

But its zenith was unquestionably the day when the Hasse 10/350 waveform was inserted (in its entirety) into the IEC 62305 lightning protection series. And there's an interesting story associated with that.

What was arguably Hasse's most ambitious and most audacious ploy in forwarding his 10/350 waveform is eloquently described by Ernst Landers in IEC Document 81/195/INF dated 2002.07.05 entitled TC 81 WG 3 Convenor's Report. Ernst U. Landers, by then a long-time Hasse collaborator, was the actual TC81 WG3 Convenor in 2002. But Dr. Hasse was also present at the TC81 meeting being discussed (in Firenze, Italy October 17, 2001) and was assuming the role of "Deputizing Convener." We don't know exactly what a "deputizing convenor" is, but the document makes it clear that Hasse was the one running the meeting which was dealing with the subject of how to incorporate the "SPD requirements" and "Application guide" from IEC 61312-1 into the work-in-progress IEC 62305 series of standards. This would, ipso facto, have included both the Hasse 10/350 chart parameters & LPZ concept.

Under Hasse's tutelage, TC 81 WG3 had already decided to fully integrate the IEC 61312-1 Hasse data into 62305. Quoting here from the convener's report, because the technical content of 61312-1 had already been "discussed and accepted unanimously in WG3, the convenor offered, to integrate editorially these five parts (of IEC 61312-1) into the draft IEC 62305..." His offer was of course readily accepted. We have to agree this was a good move from Dr. Hasse's viewpoint--getting the Hasse 10/350 waveform and LPZ concept written into the new 62305 series in an unadulterated form was far too important a task to be left to the vagaries of "committee action." According to the report, the "editing work" was completed and the resultant document was sent to all members of WG 3 giving them 1 month to respond. When, after one month, NONE of them had responded, the actual convener, Dr. Landers, naturally, declared a "consensus" had been reached and sent the document to Dr. Lo Piparo (Secretary of TC 81) who got it published as a New Work Item proposal. This pushed it on its way to eventually becoming a full standard.

Introducing IEC 62305 to the world

Long before the 62305 Standard was completed, Hasse took it upon himself to introduce and gain acceptances for it. He was the first to bring it to the world's attention with his paper "New Standards for Protection Against Lightning--New Series 62305" presented at the VII SIPDA in Curitiba, Brazil in 2003.

Broadcasting his theories and getting them accepted were tasks Hasse took very seriously. In 1994 at the 22nd International Conference on Lightning Protection in Budapest his article "Principle for an Advanced Coordination of Surge Protective Devices in Low Voltage Systems" for the first time used the catch phrase: "primary threat from lightning was the 10/350 waveform." Guaranteed to attract attention, this was later incorporated into the 62305 Series. His article "A future- oriented principle for the coordination of arresters in low-voltage systems" (etz. magazine Issue 1, pp. 20-23, 1995) was aptly named. Dr. Hasse's prescient vision had allowed him to exactly predict IEC 62305's 10/350 lightning protection parameters more than 10 years before the fact.

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