Power bus oscillations in data centers can significantly affect the reliability and performance of the equipment. These oscillations often arise due to source and load impedances that can create resonant circuits, leading to voltage fluctuations that can disrupt operation. The following outlines resources for system level source and load impedance measurements.

Venable has years of experience measuring output (source) and input (load) impedances and provide the knowledge and equipment to the industry to understand and solve the problem. In the white paper “Distributed Power- What Causes These Systems to Oscillate”, the reason for power bus oscillations is explained in detail. A summary of this phenomenon is described in the blog “Protect Your Distributed Power System from Oscillation”. Since there may be several levels of power conversion in a distributed power system, an in depth understanding of converter impedances is detailed in the white paper “Source-Load Interactions in Multi-Unit Power Systems”.

For details on how to make source and load impedance measurements, Venable has a three part series of blogs that detail the equipment needed, test set up, and procedures. The articles are found here:

Measuring the Input and Output Impedance of Power Supplies (Part 1)

Measuring Impedance of Power Supplies - Current Probe and Scale Factor (Part 2)

Measuring the Input and Output Impedance of Power Supplies (Part 3)

With the knowledge and test equipment available from Venable Instruments, one can better understand and eliminate (better yet- prevent) undesirable, and possibly destructive, behavior in their data center and server farm power systems.