Allen, If you are still alive after conducting (ha, ha) some home experiments:
Unless you are fortunate in having an extremely non conductive floor in a very dry humidity environment then you will quite likely experience some level of shock. Even standing on wooden floor boards does not guarantee good insulation. If you are touching plastered walls then they will usually have enough moisture in them to conduct - ditto the wall paper - concrete certainly will. Some rubber materials contain carbon so they will conduct also. In my experience standing on most common commercial or domestic floor surfaces in standard footwear and then touching a 240Vac line will give you a medium to good jolt. The reason you are more likely survive a single handed shock is that the path does not cross the chest and heart. However it can still make you fall off a set of metal or damp wooden step ladders and kill you from the fall! Regards, Chris From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Allen Tudor Sent: 26 November 2004 02:42 To: [email protected] Subject: Is one-handed electrical shock possible? Greetings all, I recall hearing accounts of children inserting a hairpin, for example, into an electrical outlet inside the home and receiving a shock. For some reason, I started thinking about this recently and wasn't sure if I understood this one-handed electrical shock phenomenon. How does one receive an electrical shock if the hazardous source of electricity is touched with only one hand and there is no solid contact between that person and ground? Let's assume for argument's sake, that the other hand is touching nothing. The feet are insulated from earth because the person is standing on a non-conductive floor. Seems like if there is no solid earth or ground reference, there would be no current flow through the body. Does capacitance between the body and earth come into play? Thought I would ask before conducting an experiment at home. Thanks in advance. Allen Tudor _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/listserv/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Scott Douglas [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc This message (including any attachments) may contain confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose. If you are not the intended recipient, delete this message. If you are not the intended recipient, disclosing, copying, distributing, or taking any action based on this message is strictly prohibited. This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/listserv/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Scott Douglas [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
