current injection testing of circuit breakers

[ehrengraff]

I have an inspection scope for an industrial facility that calls for current injection testing of all three phase circuit breakers and motor overload units. My concern is that the maintenance staff does not have replacement parts on hand and that in the event a component fails the test and is 'fried' the system would be offline. am I correct in my understanding that current injection testing does NOT fall under non-destructive testing since a piece of equipment could potentially be destroyed?

 

[zog]

I have an inspection scope for an industrial facility that calls for current injection testing of all three phase circuit breakers and motor overload units. My concern is that the maintenance staff does not have replacement parts on hand and that in the event a component fails the test and is 'fried' the system would be offline. am I correct in my understanding that current injection testing does NOT fall under non-destructive testing since a piece of equipment could potentially be destroyed?

I assume you mean primary current injection, not seconday current injection testing. You are likely correct that they may not have replacement parts on hand (I happen to have anything you would ever need for air and vacuum breakers FYI). If a breaker fails the test it would not have tripped in the event of a fault, so better to fix it now rather than have it fail when it needs to operate when equipment damage, personel injury, and an unplanned outage could all be the alternative.

Primary current injection is not a destructive test if you follow recognized standards and procedures (NEMA, NETA, ANSI, etc...) and is done by trained technitions, if you don't know what you are doing it is possible to damage the equipment.

 

[petersonra]

I have an inspection scope for an industrial facility that calls for current injection testing of all three phase circuit breakers and motor overload units. My concern is that the maintenance staff does not have replacement parts on hand and that in the event a component fails the test and is 'fried' the system would be offline. am I correct in my understanding that current injection testing does NOT fall under non-destructive testing since a piece of equipment could potentially be destroyed?

I agree with Zog. If it is going to fail, better it fail when tested than when it is needed to do its job.