Arc Flash Hazard Assessments are required every 5 years yet many businesses choose not to have the important safety inspection and engineering evaluation completed on the 5-year schedule (or possibly not at all). Electricity powers our economy and nearly every business would be negatively impacted with a power disruption. Much more importantly, though, every business would be remiss to allow a potential arc flash event to occur where employees, contractors and customers' safety were put at risk of injury or worse. Learn more about Arc Flash Hazard Assessments and whether your business should be budgeting for and completing this important electrical safety requirement on schedule. #osha #nfpa #nfpa70e #nfpa70b #ieee #electricalsafety
Going through the risks and dangers of electricity, I came across this gem of a video. A pendulum set up, and the ball comes close to but does not connect with the electrode. The distance between the two points becomes stressed and electrons are released into that area which ionises the gap and the current can flow. That current flow causes heat and that heat further excites the air and allows that arc to keep going. So that small flash over gets stretched until the distance overcomes the ability to maintain that current flow. This is one of the dangers of being near to energised HV conductors. You dont actually need to touch them. And once that arc is struck it can do damage before the arc dies out. There are a few mechanisims behind the arc and how it comes about, but it does. And its dangerous. So we control those dangers as much as we can. We stop access to the live conductors by enclosing them, putting them out of reach, what ever we need to do. We make use of documentation as a means of control. And the process behind the documentation supports this. If we are through work going into areas with high voltage then we should be ensuring that we have competent persons undertaking that work. There are courses out there that can help with this. That can form part of the route towards being competent with such equipment and being aware of the dangers that such equipment brings with it. The below demonstration was undertaken by a trained individual in a controlled environment.