A Practical Guide to the Mechanics of Performing an Arc Flash Study at Commercial & Industrial Facilities

This paper presents practical engineering aspects of conducting an Arc Flash Study. For about twenty years, the study and application of Arc Flash Analysis has focused on the individual bus application as per IEEE stnd 1584. And same is done with NFPA 70E. We find that most of the articles written about conducting an arc flash study are based on having all the information readily available. However, there is very little, if anything, documented on how to conduct this huge effort of collecting all the necessary information safely. A methodology on how to efficiently and categorically gather all the necessary information in a safe manner is needed. This involves considerations such as, naming conventions, various personnel and departments involved, outages, and lastly but most importantly the time needed to collect all the data. Furthermore, based upon our experiences we would share some mitigation strategies for equipment installations which do not easily fit into nominal situations. An example of a recently conducted study is presented.