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Short Circuit Fault Current and Arc Flash Hazard Analysis Website

Determining available short circuit fault currents is one of the most important aspects of designing power distribution systems. Short circuits and their effects must be considered in selecting electrical equipment, circuit protection devices, carrying out arc flash analysis. The short circuit calculator presented on this web-site is offered in effort to satisfy the need for a convenient, comprehensive method of calculating three phase distribution system short circuit fault currents. It is intended for radial and looped low voltage (LV) and high voltage (HV) circuits. The calculator allows to quickly and easily obtain accurate potential short circuit currents at each node (bus) in a power distribution system.
A Handbook to Accompany the Online Short-Circuit Calculation Program

• What MVA method is about?
• What are the major service benefits for the consumer?
• How much do you charge for your services?
• Would you review input data I've entered into the calculator?
• Can we use a cheque or Purchase Order?
• How does your program handle input data tolerances and does it track error propagation though calculation steps?
• How do I save my project and try another configuration?
• Calculation example

Arc Flash Hazards Study

We have developed an easy-to-use and comprehensive free online tool for calculating arc incident energy, flash protection boundary and risk category required by NEC when work is to be performed on or near the energized equipment. The calculator takes equipment configuration, gap between electrodes, grounding type, short circuit fault current value and system voltage on input, determines arcing fault current, calculates incident energy, flash protection boundary, hazard / risk level at the potential point of fault and creates detailed warning label [more...].
Arc Flash Calculator and Warning Label Creator

• What causes an arc flash?
• What are the arc flash hazards?
• Why should I be concerned about arc flash?
• What are the Canadian occupational health and safety legislation about arcflash hazards?
• What is incident energy?
• What are the shock approach and flash protection boundaries?
• What is personal protective equipment (PPE)?
• What is an arc flash warning label?
• What are the available methods for performing arcing flash incident energy calculations?
• What tools do you recommend for arcflash hazard assessment?
• How do I proceed with arc flash analysis?
• Calculation example using Arc-Flash-Analytic v 1.1

  What makes our short circuit calculator different?

  1	First and foremost, ArcAd's short circuit online calculator features input data analysis and hard coded error propagation rules ensuring that the resulting fault current values are not more precise than justified by the accuracy of input data [ more... ]. This is very important but widely ignored issue.
  2	Ability to accurately handle motor and generator contributions. Many programs and procedures of this type do not properly account for motor loads as they simply have the user add the motor contribution to the utility source KVA. Some programs make short circuit fault current assumptions based on transformer size etc. This inadvertently distorts short circuit fault current values and blurbs the safety margin. The calculator allows motors and generators to be placed anywhere in the network. The contribution from each motor and the utility source is vectorally added at every point where they intersect. This provides an extremely accurate analysis of the maximum short circuit MVA any node can be subject to.
  3	By performing short circuit MVA analysis for positive, negative and zero sequences, symmetrical three phase and unsymmetrical phase to ground, phase to phase, double phase to ground fault currents can be resolved.

  The calculator procedure is based on MVA method for solving industrial power system short circuits. Each component of the power system is assigned MVA short circuit rating. For example, the short circuit MVA contribution of the motor is equal to its own MVA base divided by its own per unit impedance. The cable or bus short circuit MVA rating is equal to (kV)² / Z, where kV is the cable line voltage and Z is cable impedance.

Briefly review the examples and frequently asked questions to see the procedure in action and learn the resource capabilities

Create an account if you don't already have one, and log onto the page where you can add components one by one to build up a radial electrical distribution system. The components can be a power source, transformers, bus ducts, cables, motors and generators, or "special" components whereby the user can define his own X and R values for a non-standard device. Short circuit MVA values contributed both by source and the system equipment are calculated for each portion of the system

Your account gives you the advantage of saving the entered system digram and experiment with other configurations. This is practical for systems with multiple scenarios of interconnections where the system goes through ongoing changes over a period of time. You may continue your analysis without having to re-enter your data from the beginning.

More Frequently Asked Questions:

• Steps of performing short circuit analysis.
• Can single line to ground fault be solved using the MVA method?
• Can double line to ground fault be solved?
• How to convert calculated SC MVA to short circuit current in amperes?
• How does your arc flash calculator deal with single phase faults?
• How to resolve direct current dc arcing fault
• What services are you providing and how important are they?
• Who are you targeting and what are your objectives?
• How to resolve delta connected systems?