Page 38 - Occupational Health & Safety, September 2018

ELECTRICAL SAFETY
Incident Energy Analysis—One Way or Another
Having labels with warnings on them is just one piece of the pie when it comes to a robust electrical safety program. BY MICHELLE MURPHY AND BRYAN RUPERT
Innovation in Arc Flash
Innovation in electrical safety? Yes, as old school as the electrical industry is, as far as power systems are concerned, arc flash is still one of the newer things. It may not be as fancy as the addition of the variable frequency drive, but we are talking about blasts of plasma, the fourth state of matter, and this plasma can be hotter than the surface of the sun. Even in incident energy analysis, which began its start decades ago, there is something new—which is the reverse-study table method. These are tables in the spirit of the NEC
(National Electric Code), which is the goddess of shortcuts and common-sense applications, of which the backbone is plain, boring, tedious engineering.
Standards for Incident Energy Analysis
This article covers the options for performing arc flash incident energy analysis and labeling equipment for the arc flash hazard. The Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE 1584) provides the equa- tions for incident energy analysis, and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has adopted the
34 Occupational Health & Safety | SEPTEMBER 2018
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