SW1 said:

Also, speaking with various colleagues for the UK , Arc Flash is not mandated/law.  However, more cases are been investigated generally by the HSE, so one could say there have been issues.

Arc flash is a known hazard and as such is subject to the same requirements as any other hazard whether it be shock or working at height for instance. There is an IET fact file on the subject: arc flash fact file and I also wrote a book on the subject called the European Arc Flash Guide. European Arc Flash Guide

The fines are eye watering right now with one company being fined £3.6M for two arc flash accidents, one of which was LV and another for £1M for an LV arc flash. I shared the details on LinkedIn of a fatality in Scotland just last week. Please reach for my book before reaching for heavy duty PPE.

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Thanks for linking to that, I found that a nice digestible book. Personally I like the low maths approach and agree with your comment that to use levels based on injury distance of 450mm is a bit arbitrary and will not save the back of your hand or any other body part if it is in or very near the 'event' .  I am however more or less metric ;-) so spend some time converting your caloric formulae to Joules.
Perhaps not in this thread, but if you are OK with the idea it would be useful at some point to have your opinion on the Lee method or better alternatives for situations  outside the readily available test data such as HVDC, or energy limited cases like pulse power capacitor banks that have a huge short term PSSC, no ADS but a definite maximum energy. Do you frequent this forum much ?
Mike

Thank you Mike, for your kind words and in respect of the use of calories rather than joules, I did, very marginally, decide to use calories. This was my explanation from Chapter 4: "This is where the predicted incident energy is calculated to be 5.0J/cm² (1.2 cal/cm²). 1.2 calories per square centimetre is often depicted as the amount of incident energy that one could receive if you were to hold your finger in the hottest part of a match or candle flame for one second. Not to be recommended but it is unlikely that you would receive anything more than mild superficial burns. Whilst the SI unit used (International System of Units) is joules per square centimetre (J/cm²), most of the references to incident energy within this guide will be in calories per square centimetre (cal/cm²) as this unit of measure tends to be universally used for protective measures." I was trying to limit confusion but thank you for your comments.

In respect of your question about Lee equations, (theoretical equations that were developed back in the 1980s by Ralph Lee in the USA) these are often used by software developers for voltages above 15kV but tend to be extremely conservative. As a result, they have been dropped from the latest version of IEEE 1584:2018. There are some alternatives including ArcPro software and ETAP have also provided their own module. However, I understand that other software developers are still using Lee equations. Ralph Lee did provide formulae for blast pressure and in fact, I have used this free tool in the online guide www.ea-guide.com for the purpose of comparison. In my comments, I point out “The Blast Pressure Calculator provides a method to determine and compare blast pressure under relative scenarios. Whilst there is caution about the absolute accuracy in real life situations, it serves as an educational tool and could also highlight extreme danger.”

Sorry for taking some time to get back to you, please PM me about the specifics of other applications that you may have in mind.

Mike

Thank you for that  Mike Frain   I think you may need to set some profile options to receive a PM, the message thing cannot find you as a recipient searching either by name or number - 54a64b2e4c5969a0449a82b1ef1ecf70 It may of course also be me, I do not send that many messages. and this forum messaging SW is not intuitive. Or try ping to me -- I know other folk have managerd that

~mike,

Thank you for that  Mike Frain   I think you may need to set some profile options to receive a PM, the message thing cannot find you as a recipient searching either by name or number - 54a64b2e4c5969a0449a82b1ef1ecf70 It may of course also be me, I do not send that many messages. and this forum messaging SW is not intuitive. Or try ping to me -- I know other folk have managerd that

~mike,