SAFEGUARDING THE ELECTRIC WORKPLACE

SAFEGUARDING THE ELECTRIC WORKPLACE. SUBJECT : ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AND TRANSMISSION LINES NAME : ISUNOORI SINDHUJA ROLL NO : 20951A04J6 BRANCH : ECE SEC : E.

INTRODUCTION. ELECTRICAL INCIDENTS DO NOT have to result in injury or death. Every health effect, including death, amputation, burn, crush, blast, blindness, hearing loss and brain injury, is unnecessary. Engineering, scientific, and record-keeping experience over the last ten years has shown that electrical incidents are not random or rare. Safety professionals and electrical safety leaders are uniquely positioned to respond to every unintentional workplace exposure to electrical energy as a potentially fatal or environmentally threatening scenario. To enhance the fund of knowledge and resources available for professionals implementing safe electrical work practices, we present a historical overview of electrification and electrical safety management, followed by a survey of recent developments to reduce the frequency and severity of electrical incidents and their consequences..

In the worlds of business, manufacturing, engineering, behavioral safety, and regulatory compliance, the financial case for improving electrical safety can be justified through measurable improvement by preventing injury to people, minimizing energy and raw materials waste, preventing process safety and environmental incidents, protecting capital investment from damage, and increasing uptime of operations. Beginning in the last decade of the 19th century and escalating rapidly during the first quarter of the 20th century, virtually every facet of our civilization integrated electrical applications. Through the 20th century, electrification became the single most important engineering achievement, according to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Power generation and distribution, communication, mass transportation, agriculture and food production, and diagnostic medicine are examples of the domains that were transformed by electrification. Other significant engineering accomplishments of the past century, such as space travel and automobiles, were dependent on electrical technologies..

Evolution in Standards and Regulations. In the United States, there are a number of standards and regulations related to electrical safety. They cover both electrically safe equipment conditions and electrical safety-related work practices. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Regulations (Standards—29 CFR) are federal law and must be followed under penalty of fines and/or imprisonment. Part 1910, Occupational Safety and Health Standards, applies to general industry. Subpart S,1910.331 through 1910.335, Electrical Safety-Related Work Practices, and Subpart R, 1910.269, Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution, contain regulations that dictate safe electrical work practices. Other OSHA standards directly related to electrical safety include 1910, Subpart I, Personal Protective Equipment;1910, Subpart J, General Environmental Controls 1910.147, The Control of Hazardous Energy; 1910, Subpart S, Electrical. Part 1926, Safety and Health Regulations for Construction, applies to the construction industry. Standards in this Part include; Subpart K, Electrical, and Sub-part V, Power Transmission and Distribution..

Electrical Safety Technology. In addition to an accelerated pace in the development of electrical safety related standards, new technologies and attributes of existing technologies have been brought to the forefront to further reduce hazards in the home and workplace. These technologies include: ■ the ground fault circuit interrupter, credited for reducing residential electrocutions by 50% since first introduced in the late 1960s ■ the arc fault circuit interrupter, designed to detectarcing faults that are attributed to causing more than 40,000 residential and commercial fires annually in the United States ■ high-resistance grounding for low voltage power distribution systems enhances reliability and uptime of power distribution equipment and is proven effective in significantly reducing the frequency and severity of arc flash accident s..

■ arc-resistant switchgear, a technology that protects personnel from exposure to electric arc flash and blast injury by directing and venting the explosive and thermal hazards away from personnel. ■ current limiting fuses and circuit breakers, based on technologies that detect and disconnect power to short circuits within 1/120 s, contributes to personnel protection by significantly reducing incident energy in arc flash accidents. ■ touch-safe technology limits finger access to exposed terminals and energized parts by sufficiently recessing the terminal or energized part such that it can be contacted by a test instrument or tool, but not by a human finger. ■ fiber optic and other data highway technologies provide opportunities to reduce shock exposure by using nonlethal light or safe low voltages for control and measurement circuits..

Emergence of Electric Arc Flash as a Unique Electrical Hazard.

It has taken the intervening two decades to quantify the arc exposure energy, determine the protective performance of clothing, and develop work practices and protective clothing guidelines for dealing with this hazard. Recognizing that electrical contact avoidance is not sufficient to protect against injury and death, a new electrical safety approach evolved. Recent work has addressed how to integrate protective strategies for electric shock and electric arc exposures into an electrical safety management process. The 2000 edition of NFPA 70E was the first comprehensive approach to deal with both the electric shock hazard and the noncontact arc exposure hazard..

Advances in the Evaluation and Treatment of Electrical Injury.

Electrical Work Zones, Task Creep, and Safe Boundaries.

Industrial and commercial control equipment and power distribution equipment are complex systems. These complex systems allow for portions to be isolated and de-energized to create a safe working condition. However, other portions of the system adjacent to, coupled to, in the same room, or in the same fenced area may remain energized. While the physical limits may appear apparent in two dimensional documents and drawings, personnel must use a broad set of cognitive skills to transfer the two dimensional image into the real world of 3-D, having potential discrepancies in signage, audio and visual diversions, personal distractions, and wide variation of internal configurations of equipment that from the outside may appear identical..

Conclusion. This article outlines significant changes and developments impacting further improvement in the prevention of electrical incidents and their consequences. The reality is that it will take time to synthesize and transfer these advancements in standards and technology into real and broad reduction in exposure and consequences of electrical hazards. Further progress is not possible without the strategic involvement of safety and electrical safety professionals, who are best positioned in the general techniques of hazard analysis and risk assessment to significantly impact and accelerate changes for improving electrical safety, serving as the “electrical safety conscience” to owners, managers, electrical experts, and the workers most at risk to electrical injuries..