Transformer and pedestrians traffic

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I have seen thousands of panels in my life, none of the properly maintained ones have 'burst into flames' except when someone was 'working in them'.
What caused the fault in the one you saw?

Your safety guys need to do a risk analysis, as required by NFPA70E. Your employees maybe more likely to be injured using a ladder to put and remove the arc flash blanket than they are by a spontaneous failure of the panel.
 
jim dungar said:
I have seen thousands of panels in my life, none of the properly maintained ones have 'burst into flames' except when someone was 'working in them'.
What caused the fault in the one you saw?

Your safety guys need to do a risk analysis, as required by NFPA70E. Your employees maybe more likely to be injured using a ladder to put and remove the arc flash blanket than they are by a spontaneous failure of the panel.
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it had a short circuit fault, load side of main CB.
safety guys are looking into the options we have in that area.
 
jumper said:
What caused the fault?
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thats as far as I know, someone speculated that going from high loads to low loads might have affected the temperature of the conductor and its length , that one of the connections came loose. not alot was left from that panel.
 
jado85 said:
thats as far as I know, someone speculated that going from high loads to low loads might have affected the temperature of the conductor and its length , that one of the connections came loose. not alot was left from that panel.
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Poorly torqued connection, maybe?
 
ggunn said:
Poorly torqued connection, maybe?
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maybe, not enough physical evidence left.we could speculate all day.
main point, is trying to avoid such incident at our location, where it could seriously hurt someone.

off topic, how long does it take for a SC with available fault current of 24KA to melt a 500MCM, I'm think about continuous monitoring the temperature on the main CB to alarm if such incident is taking place, just curious if there would be time to react..
 
jado85 said:
maybe, not enough physical evidence left.we could speculate all day.
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How do you know you had a short circuit and not a series arcing fault? What type of overcurrent protection was upstream from this panel?

If you don't have a good handle on what caused the problem, or how it got out of control, then how do you think you will be able to from happening again.
What you are describing, sounds like an overheating termination. Maybe the solution is simply to install viewing windows and add IR scanning to your maintenance program.
 
jim dungar said:
How do you know you had a short circuit and not a series arcing fault? What type of overcurrent protection was upstream from this panel?

If you don't have a good handle on what caused the problem, or how it got out of control, then how do you think you will be able to from happening again.
What you are describing, sounds like an overheating termination. Maybe the solution is simply to install viewing windows and add IR scanning to your maintenance program.
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I don't, I got involved after the incident and to be honest I dont have the experience to deal with it(hence my too many questions), arcing fault might be what happened judging from the extent of the damage and the blown panel cover.
If you look at the other threads I started you can conclude that I'm looking for the best and cheapest way to fix the issue, right now I'm looking into overcurrent relays. both correct the dafty issues and be in compliance. as a new grad and new to the industrial power..it gets very overwhelming
 
I agree with the suggestion of a yearly IR Scan and Torqueing program.
Not likely that a wire will expand and contract enough in 11 month period to actually come out of the lug, if so, you have larger issues that need to be contended with.
As far as the block wall, if there's clearance enough to put some type of permanent partition between the panel and the public traffic that may not be a bad idea either if it's bothering someone that much.

As far as draping High Voltage blankets over the Panel, I say no. The closed panel itself is probably the best defense against and Arc Flash, if you don't trust the panel enough that you feel you need to drape blankets over to stop an arc flash, I doubt you'd find anyone who didn't question the reasoning for them being there.

As far as the view window I say no again. If there is a bright red glow coming out of the viewing window, I doubt your going to want to go look inside the window to see what's going on.

Find and hire a competent Electrical Contractor to do your work.Start a yearly IR Scanning program along with a yearly maintenance program to tighten all the connections and your problems of panels going up in flames should solve itself very quickly.

JMHO

JAP>
 
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