The 7 Steps to Complete an Arc Flash Analysis
Randolph W. Hurst
Electrical Industry Publisher, Educator, Digital Marketing Expert - The Electricity Forum - 18,000+ LinkedIn Connections
What is an Arc Flash Analysis?
An arc flash analysis is an engineered incident energy investigation defined to establish safety protocol for qualified electrical personnel required to work on electrical equipment and circuit parts that cannot be placed in an electrically safe work condition.?
Protocol such as proper levels of?personal protective equipment ppe based on both the shock and arc flash boundaries are defined by the calculated incident energy.??Other benefits of an engineered dc arc flash analysis include a short circuit & coordination investigation and updated facility electrical documentation including one-line diagrams and electrical equipment locations.
It is important to understand the process and the “behind the scenes” details of an arc fault analysis.?Our other articles?describe the importance of an Arc Flash Analysis.?In general, the following seven steps are required for the completion of a?thorough arc flash study:
STEP 1: Acquire existing as-built documentation
The usual starting point for an Arc Flash Analysis is to gather all of the existing electrical drawings that an Owner may have. These would typically include:
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If the documentation does not exist, electrical one-lines have to be developed in the field requiring a detailed field survey.
The electrical one-line diagram is the facility's electrical distribution road map and is a key part of an Analysis.
STEP 2: Field verification
Before loading the data from the electrical drawings into the power system?software, the drawings must be field verified. This requires a survey of each site to verify one-line documentation and document any missing information in order to generate an encompassing and accurate one-line.
Equipment covers need to come off so we can visually inspect and acquire PD (protective device) manufacturer/types/sizes/settings, cable type/lengths, transformer impedance values, and KVA sizes. Look below for types of equipment surveyed.
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Interesting read. Thanks Randolph.