The Must-Have Components of Your Arc Flash Training – Part 2

Continuing where we left off, we will be discussing the other main components of your arc flash training. Doing so will do you and your employees a lot of favor in preventing any accidents along the way.

4. Establish Some Risk Assessment Strategies

Risk assessment is key in safety, particularly electrical safety. By instructing the pupils on how to recognize when they are exposed to shock and arc flash threats, you have already covered the fundamentals.

But what if the circumstances are a little unique? You must include additional scenarios in your instruction and teach your students how to look, listen, and smell.

They are attempting to assess whether their equipment is in normal or abnormal condition because, if left unchecked, it could result in numerous incidents.

Working in an unusual environment may have dramatically increased risk for you.

5. Knowledge of Electrical Job Briefing Procedures

Planning your work is crucial. And the CSAZ462 and NFPA70E technical committees all concur on that.

It must be the main focus of your training because that is why they stipulated that a job briefing must be completed before beginning any work.

Your arc flash training should include how to do an effective job briefing. The tasks that can get you into difficulty ought to be the main focus.

You want this to become increasingly evident to individuals following the training as you progress through the course. A very serious incident might start with just one mistake.

6. Knowing When You Are at Risk for Shock and Arc Flash

The fun stuff starts to come up now. Additionally, it’s where most people err the most frequently.

Numerous mishaps and fatalities result from employees making the mistaken assumption that nothing dangerous was present where they were working. You must impart the opposite to them.

Shock risk should come first. The threshold for when you need to start considering the voltage is 30 volts, which you should have mentioned in the introduction to shock.

You must now impart the when to them. You are exposed to a shock danger if you are working with or close to exposed live parts that can be touched (even accidentally).

Simply ask: “Could I touch this if I slipped?”

If the response is a resounding yes,  you must approach this work with caution.

The system must be rated at least at 240 VAC (if it’s less, an arc flash could still occur if the transformer feeding the system is higher than 125 kVA or there are several transformers), but for the time being, let’s just remember the 240 VAC.

The second question is, “Am I engaging with this equipment in a way that could trigger an arc flash?” One particularly dangerous example of this would be installing a sizable circuit breaker on a live bus.

For the most part, answering these questions should be sufficient, but you might want to add a few examples to your arc flash course so the students can get a sense of what types of employment would expose them to shock risks and what types would expose them to arc flash.

Conclusion

Indeed, an arc flash is a very dangerous event that can cause serious injury or death. It is important to be properly trained in order to reduce the risk of being injured. The other must-have components of arc flash training are establishing risk assessment, having knowledge of electrical job briefing procedures, and knowing when you are at risk for shock and arc flash.

Knowing these components would not only help you and your employees push through with proper training, but you will also be able to maintain safety throughout your work.

If you are looking for a company that provides arc flash safety training, look no further than our services here at Facility Results. Some of our notable services include arc flash training, NFPA 70E training, services, and products to keep your team safe. Call us today, and let us analyze the safety levels of your facility and powerlines in no time!