Don’t let workers lives end in a flash

Although it wasn’t until the 1800s that Thomas Edison and others figured out how to harness electrical energy, humans have been dabbling in electricity since at least 600 B.C. The concept of the electric-arc flash, however, is a relatively new phenomenon.

Ralph Lee, a retired DuPont electrical engineer, first drew attention to the hazard of arc flashes in his technical paper, “The Other Electrical Hazard: Electric Arc-Blast Burns,” which he presented at the 1981 Industrial Applications Society Annual Meeting. Before Lee’s seminal paper, electrical safety focused primarily on the risk of electrical shock. But Lee argued that the electric-arc flash posed just as great a risk.

“There is another hazard [that] few appreciate – the case where contact is not necessary to incur injury,” Lee wrote. “This is the radiation burn from the fierce fire of electrical arcs, due to a short circuit that develops from poor electrical contact or failure of insulation.”

In simple terms, an arc flash is the fireball caused by a short circuit in high-voltage electrical equipment. The fireball releases dangerous levels of thermal and mechanical energy. Given how Lee described the dire consequences of being anywhere near an electric-arc blast, it’s a bit shocking that it took over a decade for his concepts to gain mainstream acceptance.

“Next to the laser, the electric arc between metals is the hottest thing on earth, or about four times as hot as the sun’s surface,” wrote Lee, adding that burns from arc flashes “can be fatal when the victim is even several feet from the arc.”

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