IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 52, NO.
1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
An Effective Approach to Reducing Arc
Flash Hazards in Power Systems
Xiaodong Liang, Senior Member, IEEE, Bagen Bagen, Senior Member, IEEE, and
David Wenzhong Gao, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—The arc flash hazard is related to electrical safety in
work place and has gained much attention as part of the safety
program for many facilities. An effective approach to reducing the
arc flash hazard in existing industrial and commercial facilities is
proposed in this paper. To illustrate the proposed approach and
provide quantified results, computer simulation is conducted for a
large oil field facility and a manufacturing facility in a commercial
building as two case studies. The simulation results from the two
case studies show significant reductions on the incident energy
and the fault clearing time, which verifies the effectiveness of the
proposed approach.
Index Terms—Arc flash hazard analysis, fault clearing time,
incident energy, personal protective equipment (PPE), protective
device coordination study, safety program.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE arc flash hazard has gained much attention in the past
decade as it is related to electrical safety in the work
place [1]–[23]. NFPA 70E 2015 Edition defines the arc flash
hazard as a dangerous condition associated with the release
of energy caused by an electric arc [1]. An electric arc flash
occurs when the insulation between the conductive components
can no longer withstand the applied voltage, which causes the
passage of current between two electrodes through ionized
gases and vapors. The electrical energy supplied to the arc
is converted into other forms of energy, resulting in intense
thermal radiation, noise, explosive expansion of surrounding air
due to rapid heating, and melting/vaporization of arc electrodes
and metal components in the vicinity of the arc [2].
The energy associated with an arc is defined as “incident
energy” by IEEE Std 1584-2002: “the amount of energy
impressed on a surface, a certain distance from the source,
Manuscript received May 19, 2014; revised November 9, 2014; accepted
December 15, 2014. Date of publication September 8, 2015; date of current
version January 18, 2016. Paper 2014-PSEC-0296.R1, presented at the 2014
IEEE Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada,
October 5–9, and approved for publication in the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON
I NDUSTRY A PPLICATIONS by the Power Systems Engineering Committee of
the IEEE Industry Applications Society.
X. Liang is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineer-
ing, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University of
Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL A1B 3X5 , Canada (e-mail: xliang@mun.ca).
B. Bagen is with Manitoba Hydro, Winnipeg, MB R3C 0G8, Canada (e-mail:
bbagen@hydro.mb.ca).
D. W. Gao is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208 USA (e-mail: Wenzhong.Gao@
du.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2015.2477269
0093-9994 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
67
generated during an electrical arc event.” By definition, this
could be due to both the heat radiated by the arc and the
associated pressure-wave effects due to the expansion of air and
vaporized metal [3], [4].
In 1985, Lee published the first paper that could be used
to assess the hazards associated with the arc flash, where the
thermal event associated with an electric arc and its effects on
the human body were described for the first time [5]–[7]. It was
mentioned that the extremely high temperature of these arcs can
cause fatal burns at up to a distance of about 5 ft and major
burns at up to a distance of about 10 ft from the arc. An arc flash
incident could result in serious injuries or death. Injury to bare
skin begins at an incident energy value of 1.2 cal/cm2 , which is
the equivalent heat energy of holding the skin in a candle flame
for about 1 s [8].
To protect personnel safety, NFPA 70E 2015 Edition pro-
vides general requirements for electrical-safety-related work
practice, establishing an electrically safe work condition and
guideline for working on or near live parts. To protect a worker
from the arc flash hazard, appropriate personal protective equip-
ment (PPE) is required.
The arc flash risk assessment shall be performed and shall de-
termine if an arc flash hazard exists [1]. Such assessment can be
performed by the arc flash hazard analysis using computer sim-
ulation [2], [3]. If the assessment results show that an arc flash
hazard exists, the risk assessment shall further determine the
appropriate safety-related work practices, the arc flash bound-
ary, and the PPE to be used within the arc flash boundary. The
arc flash risk assessment should be updated when a major mod-
ification and renovation takes place [1]. It is recommended by
NFPA 70E 2015 Edition that such assessment should take into
consideration the design of the overcurrent protective device
and its opening time, including its condition and maintenance [1].
The arc flash hazard is primarily found in electric circuits of
208 V and higher in industrial and commercial facilities [2].
These facilities have recognized that the arc flash prevention
is part of a complete safety program. Quantification of the arc
flash hazard level and labeling procedures are major portions of
this effort [9].
The equipment labeling requirement is specified in
NFPA 70E 2015 Edition [1]. Electrical equipment such as
switchboards, panel boards, industrial control panels, and motor
control centers, which are likely to require examination, adjust-
ment, servicing, or maintenance while energized, shall be field
marked with a label. The laboratory should show the nominal
system voltage, the arc flash boundary, and at least one of the
following: 1) available incident energy and the corresponding
68 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 52, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
Fig. 1. Typical equipment label for arc flash hazard [10].
working distance; 2) minimum arc rating of clothing; and
3) site-specific level of PPE [1]. The label shall be updated
where the review of the arc flash hazard risk assessment iden-
tifies a change that renders the label inaccurate [1]. A sample
equipment label of the arc flash hazard is shown in Fig. 1 [10].
According to NFPA 70E 2015 Edition, to select proper arc
flash PPE, one of the following methods shall be used: incident
energy analysis method or arc flash PPE categories method.
Either, but not both, method shall be permitted to be used on
the same piece of equipment [1].
In this paper, an effective approach to reducing the arc flash
hazard for existing industrial and commercial facilities is pro-
posed. Although every facility has its own issues or concerns,
this practical approach shall be able to significantly improve
the arc flash safety in existing facilities. This paper is arranged
as follows. The incident energy analysis method for arc flash
PPE selection recommended by NFPA 20E 2015 Edition is
presented in Section II; the proposed approach reducing the
arc flash hazard is introduced in Section III; to illustrate the
proposed approach and provide quantified results on the arc
flash hazard reductions, computer simulation using ETAP is
conducted for a large oil field facility and a manufacturing
facility in a commercial building as two case studies, and the
simulation results for the two case studies are presented in
Sections IV and V; the conclusions are drawn in Section VI.
II. I NCIDENT E NERGY A NALYSIS M ETHOD FOR A RC
F LASH PPE S ELECTION IN NFPA 70E 2015 E DITION
The incident energy analysis method in NFPA 70E 2015
Edition needs to determine the incident energy exposure level,
which shall be based on the working distance of the employee’s
face and chest areas from a prospective arc source for the
specific task to be performed. Arc-related clothing and other
PPE shall be used by the employee based on the incident
exposure associated with the specific task. The “guidance on
selection of arc-rated clothing and other PPE for use when
incident energy exposure is determined” is shown in Table I,
which is Table H.3(b) in NFPA 70E 2015 Edition [1]. This new
guideline replaces the old arc flash PPE selection criteria in
NFPA 70E 2004.
The estimated incident energy for an arc in a cubic box
(20 in on each side, open on one end) can be calculated by [1]
EMB = 1038.7DB−1.4738tA (0.0093F 2 −0.3453F +5.9675) (1)
where
EMB maximum 20-in cubic box incident energy in calories
per square centimeter;
DB distance from electrode, in inches (for distances 18 in
or greater);
tA arc duration, in seconds
F short-circuit current, in kiloamperes (for the range of
16–50 kA) [1].
It is found that the incident energy is determined by the short-
circuit current, the arc duration, and the distance from electrode.
For existing facilities, when the overcurrent protective device
settings are adjusted to clear the fault more quickly, the fault
clearing time/the arc duration will be reduced, which results in
a smaller incident energy.
III. A PPROACH TO R EDUCING A RC F LASH H AZARD
To reduce injury from the arc flash hazard and improve work
safety on or near electrical equipment in an existing industry
or commercial facility, the following approach is proposed and
can be implemented in two major steps.
1) Identify the arc flash hazard level and reduce the incident
energy at specific equipment of interest. This step in-
volves conducting two types of power system studies us-
ing the computer simulation software such as ETAP: the
arc flash hazard analysis and the overcurrent protective
device coordination study. A few iterations between the
two studies might be needed to achieve the best results.
2) If the incident energy disposure level cannot be further
reduced by adjusting the overcurrent protective device
settings for certain equipment, replacing the protective
device might be a good solution. Usually, this protective
device is the one that holds up the incident energy of
all its downstream equipment; thus, finding this critical
protective device is the key step. In this case, the first
effort is to find this critical protective device, then replace
it with a new one, and set up proper protective settings for
it; the reduced incident energy level can be thus achieved.
The arc flash hazard analysis and the protective device
coordination study are needed during the process.
The protective device coordination study is usually not re-
quested when the arc flash hazard analysis is requested. How-
ever, for the proposed approach in this paper, both studies
must be conducted at the same time to achieve the goal. The
ultimate results will be much reduced arc flash hazard and a
safer facility for workers. The flowchart for implementing the
proposed approach is shown in Fig. 2.
When it comes to Step 2, it involves the replacement of
a protective device; sometimes, it could be hard due to the
cost. However, it is recommended that the facility management
should invest on this for the sake of the workers’ safety.
LIANG et al.: EFFECTIVE APPROACH TO REDUCING ARC FLASH HAZARDS IN POWER SYSTEMS
TABLE I
G UIDANCE ON S ELECTION OF A RC -R ATED C LOTHING AND O THER PPE FOR U SE W HEN I NCIDENT
E NERGY E XPOSURE I S D ETERMINED (TABLE H.3( B ) IN NFPA 70E 2015 E DITION ) [1]
Fig. 2. Proposed approach to reducing arc flash hazard for existing industrial
and commercial facilities.
69
The following procedure might be useful for the facility
management to consider arc flash hazard: 1) identifying the
arc flash hazard by conducting the arc flash hazard analysis;
2) adjusting overcurrent protection settings for protective de-
vices and/or replacing the protective device(s) if necessary to
reduce the arc flash hazard; 3) implementing best engineering
practices on safety procedure; 4) implementing administration
reinforcement on safety procedure; and 5) utilizing PPE as the
last line of defense.
IV. C ASE S TUDY 1: A L ARGE O IL F IELD FACILITY
A large oil field facility is 50 years old and powers more
than 1000 electrical submersible pump oil wells. The arc flash
hazard became a concern of the facility management due to
past incidents. The arc flash hazard analysis was requested. The
goal of this analysis is to evaluate the arc flash hazard at major
equipment and provide labels for them.
The electrical single-line diagram of the facility is shown in
Fig. 3. The facility consists of four load groups. Inside each
load group, there are two main transformers stepping down the
voltage from 66 to 4.16 kV; the secondary of the two main trans-
formers is connected to the 4.16-kV switchgears. The power
is further distributed from the 4.16-kV switchgears to multiple
motor control centers downstream. There are medium-voltage
circuit breakers and relays connected between the secondary
of the two main transformers and the 4.16-kV switchgears in
each load group, and the relays serve as the major upstream
protection.
70
Fig. 3. Electrical single-line diagram of the oil field facility.
Fig. 4. System configuration of Load Group 1.
The system configuration of Load Group 1 is shown in Fig. 4.
The other three load groups have a similar system configuration.
The 4.16-kV switchgears in Load Group 1 are represented by
the buses, i.e., “SGR#1-1” and “SGR#1-2” and “SGR#2-1” and
“SGR#2-2” in Fig. 4.
The proposed approach to reducing the arc flash hazard is
applied to this facility. The critical protective devices whose
settings affect the arc flash hazard levels significantly are the
relays Relay 1-1 and Relay 1-2 in Fig. 4, which are connected
between the secondary of the two main transformers and the
4.16-kV switchgears inside each load group.
Two terminologies are extensively used in the arc flash haz-
ard analysis: the fault clearing time and the arc flash boundary.
The arc duration is defined as the fault clearing time, which
is the calculated time in seconds needed by the protective
device to completely clear the fault and extinguish the arc. The
arc flash boundary shall be the distance at which the incident
energy is equal to 5 J/cm2 (1.2 cal/cm2 ) [1]. The arc flash
boundary is determined from the incident energy and the fault
clearing time. The unit of the arc flash boundary is in feet.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 52, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016
From the power systems protection point of view, the pro-
tective device settings are considered appropriate as long as
the upstream and downstream circuits follow the basic zone
protection rules. There are no fixed settings for protective
devices. i.e., protective settings are allowed to be within a large
range. That is why, sometimes, people call protection an art.
The rule to adjust the protective device settings for reducing the
arc flash hazard is to keep the upstream and downstream circuits
following the basic zone protection regardless how the settings
are changed.
On the other hand, the calculated fault clearing time, incident
energy, and arc flash boundary are determined by the protective
device settings. Different protective device settings might result
in significant differences in the arc flash hazard analysis results.
To quantify the impact of such settings on the arc flash hazard,
two sets of relay settings, i.e., existing and new overcurrent
protection settings, are applied to Relay 1-1 for each load group
in this oil field facility. The overcurrent protection settings for
the existing and new relay need to be coordinated with that of
all downstream relays.
LIANG et al.: EFFECTIVE APPROACH TO REDUCING ARC FLASH HAZARDS IN POWER SYSTEMS 71

TABLE II
S IMULATED A RC F LASH H AZARD A NALYSIS R ESULTS AT THE 4.16-kV S WITCHGEARS U SING D IFFERENT R ELAY S ETTINGS FOR F OUR L OAD G ROUPS

The arc flash hazard analysis and the protective device co-
ordination study in this case study are conducted using the
computer simulation software ETAP. The simulated arc flash
hazard analysis results at the 4.16-kV switchgears with existing
and new overcurrent protection settings for each Relay 1-1 in
each load group are shown in Table II.
Table II indicates that the simulated incident energy at
4.16-kV switchgears can be significantly reduced under the
same arcing fault current conditions by simply adjusting the
relay overcurrent protection settings.
For example, using the existing overcurrent protection set-
tings for Relay 1-1 LG1 in Load Group 1, the simulated
incident energy at the 4.16-kV switchgears in Load Group 1
is 70.79 cal/cm2 . Using the new overcurrent protection settings
for the same relay, the simulated incident energy becomes
9.152 cal/cm2 at the same switchgear.
Using new relay settings, the calculated incident energy value
at the 4.16-kV main switchgear of each load group is reduced
to less than 12 cal/cm2 . The arc flash PPE can be selected based
on these incident energy values using Table I.
The “before” (existing) and “after” (new) overcurrent pro-
tection settings of Relay 1-1 LG1 in Load Group 1 for reducing
the arc flash hazard are shown in the time–current characteristic
(TCC) curves in Fig. 5. The two sets of settings for this relay
are coordinated with all downstream relays, which are circled
inside the red dashed oval in Fig. 5. The TCC curves for all
downstream relays are also included in the same figure.
V. C ASE S TUDY 2: A C OMMERCIAL B UILDING
The arc flash hazard analysis of a manufacturing facility in
a commercial building is conducted in this paper to further
illustrate the proposed approach. In this case study, a protective
device must be replaced to reduce the arc flash hazard in panels
in the shop area of the facility.
72 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 52, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

Fig. 5. (a) System configuration. (b) Settings for Relay 1-1 LG1 in Load Group 1 before and after adjustments for reducing arc flash hazard with coordinated
downstream relays.

The electrical single-line diagram of the manufacturing facil-
ity is shown in Fig. 6. The low-voltage circuit breakers are the
main protective devices of the facility. The power is supplied
through the 1500-kVA utility transformer T1 located outside
the building. To improve the electrical safety in the facility and
place arc flash labels at panels, an arc flash hazard analysis was
conducted for the facility.
The computer simulation of the facility was done by conduct-
ing the overcurrent protective device coordination study and the
arc flash hazard analysis using ETAP. It is found that the 480-V
LIANG et al.: EFFECTIVE APPROACH TO REDUCING ARC FLASH HAZARDS IN POWER SYSTEMS
Fig. 6. Electrical single-line diagram of the manufacturing facility in a commercial building.
main panel “Pnl S4” and all its downstream panels at the “shop”
area have large incident energy values. The panel Pnl S4 is con-
nected to the downstream of the circuit breaker CB-9 and the
transformer T2 , as shown in Fig. 6. Large incident energy levels
at these panels threaten the safety of the person who works on
or near these panels in case the arc flash incidents happen.
To reduce the arc flash hazard at the panels in the shop area,
the overcurrent protection settings for the trip device of the
circuit breaker CB-9 are adjusted by conducting the protective
device coordination study. However, although its settings are
adjusted to the best that is allowed by protection, the incident
energy level still remains high. The reason is that the circuit
breaker CB-9 is a Siemens 0.6-kV LD6-A model with a 600-A
frame size, and its trip device is the thermal magnetic type
with very limited room to make adjustment on settings. Due
to this single circuit breaker, many panels in the shop area (the
panel Pnl S4 and all its downstream panels) are exposed to high
incident energy levels of the arc flash hazard.
The solution is to replace the existing circuit breaker CB-9 by
a new one with the solid-state trip device, where the protection
73
settings can be set up with much more flexibility than the old
thermal-magnetic-type trip device.
The new circuit breaker is selected to be a Siemens 0.6-kV
LLG model with a 600-A frame size. Its trip device is the solid-
state trip device ETU 545 (LG frame) model with a sensor of
600 A (LSIG). The proper protective settings of the new circuit
breaker CB-9 are set up by conducting the protective device
coordination study, and the arc flash hazard analysis is then
performed using the new circuit breaker and its new settings.
The simulated arc flash incident energy at the panel Pnl S4
using the existing and new circuit breakers CB-9 is shown in
Table III. The TCC curves of the existing and new circuit break-
ers CB-9 are shown in Fig. 7. The downstream circuit breaker
overcurrent protection settings are also shown in the same figure.
Based on the TCC curves in Fig. 7, the existing circuit
breaker cannot even protect the transformer T2 from the thermal
damage due to its fixed setting. Therefore, from the protection
point of view, it must be also replaced. By replacing this circuit
breaker with the proposed new one, the transformer T2 can be
protected from thermal damage in case of faults. Meanwhile,
74 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 52, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

TABLE III
S IMULATED A RC F LASH H AZARD A NALYSIS R ESULTS AT THE 480-V M AIN PANEL Pnl S4
AT THE S HOP A REA U SING THE E XISTING AND N EW C IRCUIT B REAKERS CB-9

Fig. 7. Protective settings for the existing (before) and new (after) circuit breakers CB-9.

the incident energy levels at the main panel Pnl S4 and all its is 57.58 cal/cm2 . By replacing the existing circuit breaker
downstream panels are reduced significantly. CB-9 with the proposed new one, the simulated incident energy
As shown in Table III, using the existing circuit breaker at this panel is 13.293 cal/cm2 , with the fault clearing time equal
CB-9, the simulated incident energy at the main panel Pnl S4 to 1.195 s.
LIANG et al.: EFFECTIVE APPROACH TO REDUCING ARC FLASH HAZARDS IN POWER SYSTEMS
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, an effective approach to reducing arc flash
hazard in existing industrial and commercial facilities has been
proposed. This approach will need the computer simulation
work using two power system studies, namely, an overcurrent
protective device coordination study and an arc flash hazard
analysis. A few iterations might be needed between the two
studies in order to obtain optimal results.
When adjusting the protective device settings to reduce the
arc flash hazard, the upstream and downstream circuits must
follow the basic zone protection rules for the power system pro-
tection purpose. Once these rules are followed and the equip-
ment is protected, the protective device settings can be adjusted
to bring down the arc flash incident energy level in the facility.
In some cases, due to the nature of existing facilities, some
protective devices could appear to be the major cause of high
arc flash incident energy levels for certain equipment, which
are identified as critical protective devices in this paper. If
adjusting protective device settings for these critical protective
devices cannot effectively bring down the incident energy, such
protective devices should be replaced to reduce the arc flash
hazard and improve work safety in the facility.
To reduce the arc flash hazard, research is extensively con-
ducted by academia and industry. The zone selective interlock-
ing technology, current-limiting fuses, and arc protection relays
with fiber optics are some methods of this effort [11]–[23].
Exploring more advanced technologies on reducing arc flash
hazard analysis will be our future work.
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Xiaodong Liang (M’06–SM’09) was born in
Lingyuan, China. She received the B.Eng. and M.Eng.
degrees from Shenyang Polytechnic University,
Shenyang, China, in 1992 and 1995, respectively, the
M.Sc. degree from the University of Saskatchewan,
Saskatoon, SK, Canada, in 2004, and the Ph.D. de-
gree from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB,
Canada, in 2013, all in electrical engineering.
From 1995 to 1999, she was a Lecturer with
Northeastern University, Shenyang. In October 2001,
she joined Schlumberger, Edmonton. She was a
Principal Power Systems Engineer with this large oil service company before
joining Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA, in August 2013,
where she was an Assistant Professor until May 2015. In July 2015, she joined
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, Canada, where she is
currently an Assistant Professor. Her research interests include power system
dynamics, power quality, and electric machines.
Dr. Liang is a Registered Professional Engineer in the Provinces of Alberta
and Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Bagen Bagen (M’05–SM’11) received the M.Sc. and
Ph.D. degrees from the University of Saskatchewan,
Saskatoon, SK, Canada, in 2002 and 2005, respec-
tively.
He is currently a Planning Engineer with the
System Planning Department, Manitoba Hydro,
Winnipeg, AB, Canada.
Dr. Bagen was a Registered Professional Engineer
with the Association of Professional Engineers and
Geoscientists of the Province of Manitoba, Canada.
David Wenzhong Gao (M’02–SM’03) received the
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer
engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology,
Atlanta, GA, USA, in 1999 and 2002, respectively,
specializing in electric power engineering.
He is currently an Associate Professor with the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA. His current
teaching and research interests include renewable
energy and distributed generation, smart grid, power
system protection, power electronics applications in
power systems, power system modeling and simulation, and hybrid electric
propulsion systems.
Dr. Gao was the General Chair of the 2012 IEEE Symposium on Power
Electronics and Machines in Wind Applications. He is an Editor of the IEEE
T RANSACTIONS ON S USTAINABLE E NERGY and an Associate Editor of
the IEEE J OURNAL OF E MERGING AND S ELECTED T OPICS IN P OWER
E LECTRONICS .