Arc Flash Protection What Is And Why Is It So Important?
Britain has some of the most comprehensive health and safety legislation in the world meaning the nation’s workers are protected from a huge range of potentially life threatening hazards such as Arc Flash.
When it comes an effective protective solution to the risk of arc flash injury, Tecwear by Wearwell, ensures your teams safety is the number one priority.
Caused by contact between one energised conductor and another, arc flash has the potential to inflict severe life changing injury to those working near the electrical equipment. Injury’s such as acute internal and external burns, blindness, hearing loss and blunt trauma injurys caused by debris and shrapnel exploding into the air at up to 300 metres per second, makes Arc Flash is one of the deadliest threats to worker safety. What’s more this ever-present danger spans multiple industries, not just those working with high voltage systems.
Developing and consistently delivering workwear specifically designed to mitigate against the risk of Arc Flash, has long been the hallmark of Tecwear, a line of comfortable, high tech PPE workwear from British workwear specialist, Wearwell.
Creating workwear that can protect against arc exposure has meant working closely with fabric manufactures.
Created using the very latest technical fabrics and innovate design features, Tecwear offers the perfect balance between practical design, technical capability and frontline protection.
Working closely with employers and workers, Tecwear’s PPE workwear some of the most advanced of its kind, with superior fabrics and carefully considered designs that elevate wearer comfort and protection. Steve Hill, Sales and Service Director from Wearwell explains, “Electric arc is a complex phenomenon gaining increased understanding and attention in the electrical safety world. Arcs are basically ionized gases caused when electricity travels through air. There are actually four types of arcs, two of which are rarely considered in arc hazard assessments and only briefly addressed in the arc flash calculations.
- Open air arc – The most widely understood
- Arc-in-a-box – Used as a method of testing Arc garments in the EU
- Ejected Arc – projectile arc plasma
- A tracking arc – Most common at higher voltages, arc plasma conducts on skin or through clothing
In lab testing, we control movement of the arc for the sake of replication, but in reality, from 480V higher, the open-air arc can quickly turn into an ejected arc or a tracking arc.
Tecwear Arc protection garments are accredited and conform to the latest IEC 61482.
Creating workwear that can protect against arc exposure has meant working closely with fabric manufactures and wearers as we sought to understand how we can mitigate this hazard whilst not compromising on comfort. In doing so we have design our Tecwear Arc Protect clothing range to be able to withstand extreme temperatures of up to 12,000°C, explosive forces, emission of plasma, fast moving debris and hot liquids.”
To ensure that our Tecwear Arc Protect coveralls, jackets, trousers and base layers meet British and European safety standards we manufacture these garments under Article 11b and subject all our Arc protection garments to strict BTTG testing and certification. This means Tecwear Arc protection garments are accredited and conform to the latest IEC 61482 – Protective Clothing against Thermal Hazards of Electric Arc, adding that much needed peace of mind.
To view our range of Arc Protect workwear click here or contact us on 01827 63651 or email us at sale@wearwell.co.uk.
