Cundall Codes Issue 5

This issue: Automatic Arc Flash Label Generator

Arc Flash is an electrical explosion or discharge that results from faults in an electrical system. For example, when a cable contacts an earthed system. Temperatures at the source of an arc flash can reach 20,000 °C.

Arc Flash labels are crucial to ensuring the safety of operatives working on or near electrical equipment. Vital information on the labels includes the minimum working distances to maintain and other information that protect the operative from serious injury from potential Arc Flash incidents.

Many of our clients have custom Arc Flash label templates that they deploy on all their projects that suit their unique requirements. There are software packages that allow the automatic generation of labels based on custom templates. However, for many valid reasons, clients may insist on the use of Arc Flash label software that do not allow custom Arc Flash labels templates. In that scenario, our clients will issue templates to the project team and manual entry is required to produce all Arc Flash labels. The information required for each label is based on the Arc Flash study performed for the project.

Below is an example of the Arc Flash label:

The problem:

In a recent hyperscale data centre project, over 1000 custom Arc Flash labels required manual input. Not only does this represent a gargantuan effort, the risk of human error due to large volumes of manual data entry is unacceptably high. Incorrect Arc Flash labels would potentially risk serious injury to operatives of the data centre.

The solution:

The Critical Systems team have written in-house scripts that generate all Arc Flash labels automatically from a client issued template. The script will take the outputs of the Arc Flash study from a native excel file and populate all 1000 labels automatically. All at a click of a button. Not only do the labels take only 30 seconds to generate, but the information is guaranteed to match exactly the required values generated from the study. Ensuring that all operatives have the correct information to perform their work safely.

This is just an example of how digital tools can remove the need for endless data entry, freeing up engineering time for adding true value to projects and keeping the health and safety of operatives at the forefront of what we do.

If you would like to get in touch about this or any other topics of digital engineering, please contact csdigital@cundall.com.