How do you determine at what level that an arc flash analysis is required on electrical equipment?
It is up to each and every facility to perform an arc flash analysis in order to limit the injury incurred during a fault to a level no greater than 1.2 cal/cm2) which equates to a curable second degree burn. The difficult part is what if you are called in to work on a piece of equipment where there has not been an analysis performed and no label has been attached to the equipment.
An arc flash analysis needs to be performed to determine the appropriate protection at anything above 50 volts.
Having determined that the equipment in question is at or above the 50 volt limit you then have a couple choices such as using the NFPA 70E-2015 Article 130, tables or perform an Incident Energy Analysis.
In the case that a full analysis cannot be performed the tables can be used although expected accuracy ratio is about 50% compared to 100% from a full scale study. I suppose in this case it is just not feasible to do a full out analysis on every piece of equipment especially if the host company has not provided the proper information.
In situations where you have no control over there having been an arc flash analysis performed to determine the protective clothing required it is best to use the tables. You must protect yourself as it is not just a matter of doing what is correct by the law but more importantly watching out for your safety.
Arc Flash Clothing
Terry Smeader
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