Wirewound Resistors To Absorb Energy Events

The source of a pulse can come from many places including lightning, inductive loads (motors), capacitor banks, switchgear, or even switching heating and ventilation systems in and out of a circuit.

A device such as a medical defibrillator needs to dissipate a large amount of energy in a very short time. To protect its electrical components from failure, engineers typically design-in a resistor that can absorb the energy of a very short duration (milliseconds) current surge.
In a solid-state electricity meter, a resistor is used to absorb the high current generated when a metal oxide varistor (MOV) clamps in response to a voltage surge on the grid.

In many of these types of applications, wirewound resistors have been engineered to absorb the short duration energy events.