Safe Workplace and Safety News

This is the safety news blog for the Safe Workplace web site. We cover workplace safety related news with a focus on how safety, or a lack of safety, impacts employers, employees and their families. We also cover topics such as safety training, safety tools, and legal issues related to safety. For regular safety news and information enter your email address in the box above the Subscribe button to the right (then click on the button).

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Is Your Electrical PPE Adequate?

A growing safety issue is that of arc flash protection and determining the proper PPE. An article in Maintenance Technology magazine addresses this topic. The problem is that PPE requirements are based on tests that may not be reflecting real-life situations. The article states:

"Recent research into arc flash phenomena, however, indicates that workers could be under-protected against the heat generated during an arc flash event. Test results presented at IEEE conferences and at the 2007 IEEE Electrical Safety Workshop show that different configurations of electrodes (conductors) yielded heat energy higher than current predictions due to the directional nature of the arc development. Additionally, initial tests of PPE, when placed within this directional plasma fl ow, did not provide the level of thermal protection predicted by its APTV."

You can read the article at: http://www.mt-online.com/articles/0507_electricalsafety.cfm

Labels: Arc Flash, Electrical Hazards, PPE