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Determining flash protection boundary and the appropriate PPE would be useless without the information being communicated to the personnel working on or in near the potentialy hazardous equipment. Section 110.16 of the NEC 2002 code requires switchboards, panelboards, industrial control panels, and motor control centers to be field marked to warn personnel of the potential electric arc flash hazards. While not every type of equipment is expressly named, industrial control panels covers every enclosure that may contain exposed energized conductors or components. The markings are to be located so they are visible to the personnel before examination, adjustment, servicing, or maintenance of the equipment. The marking is intended to reduce the occurrence of serious injury or death due to arcing faults to person who works on or near energized electrical equipment. The warning label should remind a qualified worker who intends to open the equipment for analysis or work that a serious hazard exists and that the worker should follow appropriate work practices and wear appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for the specific hazard. A unqualified person must not be near open energized equipment. An example of an arc hazard label is shown below:
Our IEEE 1584 based arc flash online tool will calculate the hazards and create detailed warning label similar to the one above. Give it a try - it is FREE! To achieve maximum safety, these labels should be installed on all existing enclosure doors, removable panels, etc. Currently, the Electrical Code does not require the label to list the Flash Hazard Boundary, Incident Energy, Approach Boundaries, or PPE requirements. Only the top two information boxes are required (Warning! Arc Flash and Shock Hazard). Future Code revisions will require the incident energy and required PPE to be listed.
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