Despite awareness campaigns, industry statistics and loss summaries, annual safety conferences and numerous industry associations driving the safety message, our approach to electrical safety is often reactive rather than proactive.

Although arc flash hazards have existed since mankind began using electricity, increasing deaths, injuries and property loss from arcing faults have led to increased awareness of the issue and investigation into methods of protection.

According to statistics compiled by CapSchell Inc, a Chicago-based research and consulting firm that specializes in preventing workplace injuries and deaths, there are five to ten arc-flash explosions that occur in electric equipment every day, resulting in medical treatment.

While most of us are familiar with electric shock, there’s significantly less awareness around arc flash – and people can die from these sudden exposures.

“Z462 deals with both electric shock and arc flash, but arc flash was seldom recognized in the past as being a hazard,” says the CSA’s Dave Shanahan. But an arc flash can occur at any time – when systems break down and fail, or when work is being done on a system.

VAMP Ltd.’s Vamp 221 is a dual-sensing and multi-zone arc protection system for low and medium voltage electrical power safety applications. The system’s ability to trip in just seven milliseconds means that electrical arcs are stopped well before their full explosive potential is reached, according to the company. Vamp 221 uses light and current sensing information to provide faster and more efficient protection than standalone over-current relays or busbar differential schemes, Vamp says. The master 221 module comes with 3-phase current measurement, 50BF breaker failure protection stages, four normally open trip contacts and two alarm contacts. Vamp says it can be programmed to sense electric arc conditions using either simultaneous light and current data, or light sensor information only. 
www.vamp.fi

A multi-year project on arc flash research recently got a boost with a US$500,000 sponsorship contribution from Schneider Electric, adding more resources to the estimated US$6.5 million joint research initiative by the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).