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View Full Version : Arc Flash/Blast Accident



mscheuerer
09-27-2007, 02:52 PM
Hey guy's, been busier than hell lately, found this up on another board and wanted to share it with you. Seems like a heart wrenching experience in my eyes that came to a very happy ending. Second chances sometimes are far and few between. So lets take a good look and REMEMBER that anything can happen out there. Our families deserve us coming home everynight.
Stay safe!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oyohKmeNpE


PS - If my memory serves me correctly it looks like he was working on a three phase 480 I-Line panel. Still trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.

Mike
:eek:

PK270
09-28-2007, 08:18 PM
Thats one tough dude to fight his way back from that. I wish the best for him and his family going forward.

This is exactly what pisses me off about some people in this business. Not implicating Donnie in any way let me say. But you hear it every day some one on the job bitching about this rule or that rule, and some of them are quite small issues. This is an unforgiving business, she'll wait as long as she has to for you to screw up and when you do it will be there waiting.

I pray that my family, friends (as well as myself) and coworkers never have to go through something like this. We have to be looking out for each other every day to try to prevent such accidents. I worked all 4 of those storms and remember bitching about needing "just one day off". I am sure he would have traded positions with me.

Hopefully we can move past many issues with each other and make this a safer proffesion. Our lives and the quality in which we live them depend on it.

HIVOLTS
09-29-2007, 11:07 AM
Does anyone have details of Donnies accident? This is powerful stuff for a safety meeting.

BigClive
09-29-2007, 12:45 PM
That looks like a pretty standard 3 phase DB incident, although it appears that the upline protection wasn't quite up to the job. Electricians around the world work on this type of DB while it's powered all the time, usually completely oblivious to what can actually happen.

If something accidentally gets shorted out on the outgoing circuit from one of the breakers then that breaker will trip and that should be as far as the fault goes. However, if a short occurs on the busbar side of the breaker and the arc engulfs all three busbars then you have a significant electrical explosion. The severity of the explosion will de determined by how long it is allowed to be sustained by upstream protection. Hand and face burns are the very least that occur in these accidents.

I was installing one of these DB's just a week ago and noted that the busbars were all open on the back without inter bar barriers to prevent this kind of flash over.

the UK electrical industry has found a pretty neat solution to this issue. They have introduced a safety initiative whereby all construction electricians have to pass a safety test in order to continue to hold their electrical certification. If they don't do the test they are not allowed to work. The test is nothing more than the usual blanket ass-covering that British corporates are famous for. By passing the test you agree amongst other things to never work live. But strangely enough you are still expected to connect into this type of DB without turning off the power to whole supermarkets or factories. As such there's no choice but to continue working live, but at least now they can blame the worker because they signed their certificate to say they wouldn't work live.

Health and safety is the biggest liability on the site these days.

Squizzy
09-30-2007, 08:37 PM
99% of the distribution boards that i have installed here the bus bars are all powder coated with this insulated plastic. So that when you get them from the manufactureres only the very ends are exposed where the breakers slot onto and are bolted on, the spare ends also have either a insulated blank fitted to them or a blanking plate to prevent accidental contact which are not my prefered option as the plates don't cover the ends when you remove the cover to install new wiring.