Development of the guide for performing arc-flash hazard calculations

This paper reports on the accomplishments of the IEEE 1584™ Working Group. This working group raised money for testing, oversaw a significant amount of testing, analyzed the data, developed a new model for incident energy calculation and wrote IEEE 1584™ IEEE Guide for Performing Arc Flash Hazard Calculations. The paper discusses: the working group´s starting point; the need for laboratory testing; the test and analysis methods employed; the discovery from the testing; the development of the model and the guide; and the need for further work. IEEE 1584™-2002 significantly updates prior information on conducting an arc flash hazard analysis in accuracy, usability, and depth. The guide offers a new empirically derived model for enclosed equipment and some open lines for voltages from 208 volt to 15 kilovolts and a theoretically-derived model for applications involving higher voltages or large gaps between conductors. Included with this guide are programs with embedded equations, which may be used to determine incident energy and the arc flash protection boundary.