Arc Flash & Electrical Safety News

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Arc Blast Video

This is a promotional video, but it also provides an excellent view of the blast resulting from an arc flash.

Labels: Arc Flash PPE, Arc Flash Products, Understanding Arc Flash

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Arc Flash Safety: History and Requirements

Scott Harris published a post on the Industrial Risk Management blog yesterday that discusses the history of arc flash and requirements for protecting people from arc flash hazards. The article opens with:

"Arc flash was first identified by Dr. Ralph Lee in his 1982 'The Other Electrical Hazard: Electric Arc Blast Burns.' Dr. Lee found that as many as 80% of electrical injuries resulted from arc flash rather than from shock, which had always been thought to be the major risk associated with live electrical work."

After discussing the history of arc flash and code requirements, Mr. Harris points out that labeling of arc flash hazards is required, and in particular a 2006 OSHA interpretation letter. The question posed to OSHA was:

"When work must be performed on energized electric equipment that is capable of exposing employees to arc-flash hazards, does OSHA require the marking of the electric equipment to warn qualified persons of potential electric arc-flash hazards — i.e., as required by NFPA 70E-2004?"

OSHA's answer was:

"OSHA has no specific requirement for such marking. A requirement to mark equipment with flash hazard warnings was not included in the 1981 Subpart S revision. However, paragraph (e) of §1910.303 requires employers to mark electrical equipment with descriptive markings, including the equipment's voltage, current, wattage, or other ratings as necessary. OSHA believes that this information, along with the training requirements for qualified persons, will provide employees the necessary information to protect themselves from arc-flash hazards. "

"Additionally, in §1910.335(b), OSHA requires employers to use alerting techniques (safety signs and tags, barricades, and attendants) . . . to warn and protect employees from hazards which could cause injury due to electric shock, burns or failure of electric equipment parts. Although these Subpart S electrical provisions do not specifically require that electric equipment be marked to warn qualified persons of arc-flash hazards, §1910.335(b)(1) requires the use of safety signs, safety symbols, or accident prevention tags to warn employees about electrical hazards (e.g., electric-arc-flash hazards) which may endanger them as required by §1910.145. "

Read the entire blog post here.

Related past posts:
Arc Flash Labeling Best Practices Guide
Arc Flash Labeling Starter Kit

Labels: Arc Flash Labeling, OSHA, OSHA Standards

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Monday, June 08, 2009

Relationship between the CE Code and Z462

Another IAEI Magazine article discusses Canadian electrical codes and the relationship between the CE Code and CSA standard Z462. You can read this article here.

The article provides a brief overview of the rules that apply to maintenance and operation and also looks at what has changed with the development of Z462.

In the article summary, it states:

"CE Code governs safety requirements for installation of electrical equipment. Such electrical work must be done by the construction electricians under electrical permits and is subject to the inspection services by regulatory authorities. Under no conditions is such work permitted to be done on live equipment"

"However, the CE Code also regulates provisions for maintenance and operation of operating equipment, and although Rule 2-304 does not allow such maintenance on live equipment, it recognizes that sometimes a completed disconnection of the operating equipment is not practicable for certain repairs, alterations or testing."

"For this reason, Rule 2-306 has been introduced into the 2006 edition of the CE Code. This rule mandates installation of warning signs of potential shock and arc flash hazards on electrical equipment. Explanatory Note in Appendix B on this rule leads the users of the CE Code (who intend to maintain live electrical equipment) to NFPA 70E and to IEEE 1584 in order to determine severity of exposure, to evaluate the arc flash hazard distance and incident energy resulting from the arc, and to select personal protective equipment appropriate for the anticipated incident energy — to protect against shock and arc flash hazards."

Labels: Canadia Electrical Safety, Work Place Safety, Z462

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Using Technology to Minimize the Arc-Flash Hazard

An article in the IAEI Magazine (International Association of Electrical Inspectors) discusses some of the technologies available to minimize arc flash hazards. The article focuses on current limiting devices and high resistance grounding. The final paragraph summarizes the article:

"High resistance grounding systems do not protect against the less frequent but still dangerous phase-to-phase or three-phase arcing faults. However, the combined use of high resistance grounding for protection from ground faults and its ability to prohibit the escalation of the fault and current-limiting fuses or current-limiting circuit breakers for phase-to-phase and three-phase arcing faults is an effective engineering approach to minimizing the arc-flash hazard."

You can read the entire article here.

Related past posts:
Understanding Ground Fault Protection
Electrical Safety In The Workplace
Preventing Arc Flash Injuries

Labels: Preventing Arc Flash Accidents, Understanding Arc Flash

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