Arc Protection Around the World
American standards for electrical safety protection have had a beneficial impact abroad. Innovation and globalization now flow both ways in this important area.
Globalization is good for you! Keep saying it (even if you don’t believe it): It really is good for everyone. Things change, and the individuals and companies that can improve, innovate, and automate will win.
Workers around the world have benefited from innovations in the U.S. market on arc flash protective clothing systems and PPE. The largest manufacturers of arc flash faceshields manufacture in the United States. These two companies now sell millions of dollars of arc flash shields, goggles, and other products around the world because of the U.S. development of safety standards.
Another benefit of globalization from safety standards is welcomed by multinational corporations: When safety standards go global, the multinationals can easily have the same training, engineering standards, and PPE standards in all countries. Multinational corporations, by international law, cannot have lower standards in facilities in another country without huge repercussions--so when the safety standards are the same in the countries in which they operate, multinationals and the workers benefit.
In 1994, OSHA promulgated a standard that changed the face of electrical safety for utilities. The OSHA 1910.269 standard "apparel clause" brought clothing to the forefront in PPE for electric arc. The arc hazard had been recognized since the 1980s, and clothing's role had been recognized, but the solution was not so apparent. Duke Energy, DuPont, and several utilities, including LG&E Energy (now a subsidiary of e-ON), began researching the electric arc hazard and commonly worn clothing, with the conclusion that flame-resistant clothing made a huge difference in worker survivability in electric arc. The chart on page XX shows the decline since 1994 in fatalities from electrical accidents that could have an arc component. The 1910.269 "apparel clause" has resulted in nearly 75 percent of U.S. electric utilities now outfitting their workers in flame-resistant clothing. Another electrical protection standard, National Fire Protection Association's 70E, made flame-resistant clothing the choice for most electrical tasks in 2000. It also had an impact on the use of flame-resistant clothing; use of flame-resistant clothing and voltage-rated gloves in electrical tasks in the workplace helped to contribute to the 25 percent decline in electrical fatalities in the United States since the introduction of these standards.
More can be done, and the impact on the world can be even greater because of the lack of electrical safety standards, especially PPE standards. This can be attributed to many factors. One is a desire to engineer out the hazard; this is fine if it works, but avoiding PPE when a potential hazard is still in the workplace is not the best course of action, especially when flame-resistant clothing is so commonly available and so apparent in its life-saving effects.
Improvement in flame-resistant clothing's comfort, protection, cost, and durability has made refusing to use arc-rated clothing suspect. In the early 1990s, Jim Green, a retired researcher from DuPont, introduced and patented the idea of cotton-nylon blend to increase the durability of flame-resistant cotton. This breakthrough and his tenacity have made lighter-weight flame-resistant cotton the mainstay of arc protection.
New materials for specialty uses, such as steel and aluminum smelting, chemical exposure, and cleanroom flame-resistant clothing are being developed at an increasing rate. Some of these innovations are being developed in the United States, others from all around the world. Additionally, ideas of protective engineering are crossing borders on a larger scale all the time. Recently, I visited countries that have benefited from U.S. innovations; they also are benefiting the U.S. market with pricing and innovations. They are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Germany.
Australian Innovation
Australia has been slow in adopting the flame-resistant clothing standards common in the United States.
I spent a week educating and being educated in Australia in May of this year. One of the top researchers in the field of electric arc, Dr. David Sweeting, is a resident of Australia. He completed a Ph.D. in electric arc several years ago and is one of the few holding such credentials. Sweeting had not done clothing testing on electric arc but has a better handle on arc assessment than many in the United States. Our time together convinced us we should work together, and he is now a member of the IEEE 1584 committee and the Electric Power Research Institute's Arc Flash Research Committee.
Australians had seen the United States' work on hazard assessment, and Sweeting raised an issue with the physics of the U.S. model. His groundbreaking work helped clarify our understanding of arc flash assessment (still in its infancy), and our extensive work in arc flash clothing and PPE helped him in developing protection strategies.
Australia and New Zealand are creators of some of the first arc flash PPE that also sheds molten aluminum. These materials are now also made in the United States also, but the original innovations came from outside this country. Innovation and globalization flow both ways.
This article originally appeared in the August 2008 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.