Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 10 replies
  • Subscribers 32 subscribers
  • Views 971 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Arc Flash: ‘It Will Never Happen to Me’ - One of the UK’s Most Overlooked Safety Risks

John Beirne

The HSE states that around 1,000 workplace electrical incidents are reported to them each year including circa 25 fatalities a year.  However, it is also believed that arc flash incidents are far higher than officially reported.



I would like to think that you would all agree that the above mentioned amount of incidents is not acceptable.  Therefore, how can we reduce the risk of arc flash?  I am working with IET Safety Panel reviewing the ‘Arc Flash Protection Fact Sheet’ and I need your help to understand why we have so many incidents and fatalities and investigate barriers to reduce such incidents and fatalities.



Some of my thoughts are:



PPE Regulations (EU) 2016/425.



Does PPE Regulations (EU) 2016/425 satisfy your requirements?  (yes we need to drop the EU).



Do they need amending and if so where and why?



Reporting.



Is there a requirement to improve the incident reporting format, to provide greater clarity and understanding of how such incidents occur, thus allowing us to look at the human factor elements?



Training.



Is there a requirement to improve training and or standards with respect to arc flash?



There is a various amount of literature about control measures and how to mitigate arc flash, which can be confusing.  Is there a generic risk assessment for Switching (Either LV or HV) that identifies arc flash?



Is the arc flash risk assessment understandable and easy to follow?



Personal Experience.



You may have witnessed arc flash and wish to inform us why you believed it occurred.



Thank you for reading this forum and trying to promote a safer working environment for your fellow electrical engineers.  I look forward to your constructive replies.



Kind regards,



John


Parents
  • 0
    And those examples you give are the very sort where more specific advice than that in the leaflet linked above would help such unskilled folk and perhaps avoid such poor  decisions.


    I suspect that none of the folk you are talking about would have looked at the job and come up with a figure in calories per square cm.

    If the IET wishes to offer authoritative guidance it needs to be in a  form digestible to those who need it.


    I do not consider this guidance to be very digestible either, but at least it gets the mathematically skilled reader  from  PSSC and distance to the bit of body to be protected, to something like an energy density, and that could be linked to a PPE spec.


    However just including a few ready reckoner graphs of closest distance vs  PSSC for various classes of PPE would make it easy for the casual reader -

    ooh my hands are 50mm from this 10kA PSSC supply,  - look at the curve I need XX protection, my face and chest is 30cm, that needs YY etc.

    Yes there are approximations and assumptions by the shed load, but at least it avoids the uninformed either insisting full body armour for changing a light bulb,  or permitting tee shirts and sandals for working on the company cut out - both of which I have witnessed.



    Mike.


Reply
  • 0
    And those examples you give are the very sort where more specific advice than that in the leaflet linked above would help such unskilled folk and perhaps avoid such poor  decisions.


    I suspect that none of the folk you are talking about would have looked at the job and come up with a figure in calories per square cm.

    If the IET wishes to offer authoritative guidance it needs to be in a  form digestible to those who need it.


    I do not consider this guidance to be very digestible either, but at least it gets the mathematically skilled reader  from  PSSC and distance to the bit of body to be protected, to something like an energy density, and that could be linked to a PPE spec.


    However just including a few ready reckoner graphs of closest distance vs  PSSC for various classes of PPE would make it easy for the casual reader -

    ooh my hands are 50mm from this 10kA PSSC supply,  - look at the curve I need XX protection, my face and chest is 30cm, that needs YY etc.

    Yes there are approximations and assumptions by the shed load, but at least it avoids the uninformed either insisting full body armour for changing a light bulb,  or permitting tee shirts and sandals for working on the company cut out - both of which I have witnessed.



    Mike.


Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines