REVIEW OF ELECTRICAL RISK AND HAZARD

IN INDUSTRIES

A TECHNICAL SEMINAR- II (REPORT)

Submitted by

PARATH GANESH. S (611218423008)

In partial fulfilment for the award of the degree of

MASTERS OF ENGINEERING

In

INDUSTRIAL SAFETY ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

KNOWLEDGE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SALEM

ANNA UNIVERSITY: CHENNAI

APRIL 2019
 ANNA UNIVERSITY: CHENNAI 600025
BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that this Technical seminar report “Review of

electrical risks and hazard in industries” is the bonafide
work of PARATH GANESH.S (611218423008) who carried
out the Technical seminar work under my supervision.

SIGNATURE SIGNATURE
Prof.M.SATHYANATHAN.M.E.,MISTE., Prof.T.DHEENATHAYALAN.ME.,M.B.A.,
HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR
Associate Professor Assistant professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering
Knowledge Institute of Technology Knowledge Institute of Technology
Salem-637504 Salem-637504

Submitted for University Viva-Voice Examination held on _____________

Internal Examiner
 INDEX

S. No Title of the Journal Author Published Remark

year
1 Application of functional Janardhanan 2018
safety to electrical power Kallambettu,
equipment and systems in Venkatesh
process industries. Viswanathan

2 Achieving safe hands-on Charles D. Deakin, 2015

defibrillation using Jakob E. Thomsen,
electrical safety gloves – A Bo Løfgren, Graham
W. Petley
clinical evaluation
3 Safety risk management for 2013
Electrical transmission and Alex Albert,
distribution line construction. Matthew R.
Hallowell
4 Electrical hazard analysis J.M. Kuiper, R. van 2011
during assembly, integration der Heijden
and testing of solar arrays.
5 Electrical safety in the 2004
operating theatre. Stephen Graham

Faculty Incharge
 REVIEW OF ELECTRICAL RISK AND HAZARD IN

INDUSTRIES

S. Parathganesh 1, T. Dheenathayalan2, G. Thangaraj 2

PG Scholar 1, Assistant Professor 2
Department of Mechanical engineering
M.E. Industrial safety Engineering.
Knowledge Institute of Technology, Salem

What is Electrical Safety?

 Electrically powered equipment can pose a significant
hazard to workers, particularly when mishandled or not
maintained. Many electrical devices have high voltage
or high power requirements, carrying even more risk.

Why Electrical Safety is important?

 Safety of operating person and neighborhood.

 Safety of major equipment's / Protection.
 Safety of electrical equipment's, gadgets, lines,
cables, etc.
 Safety of properties.
 Protection against emergencies and Unexpected
happenings.
What is Electrical Hazard?
 A dangerous condition where a worker could make
electrical contact with energized equipment or a
conductor, and from which the person may sustain
an injury from shock; and/or,
 There is potential for the worker to receive an arc
flash burn, thermal burn, or blast injury due to the
electrical contact.

Which Industries are covered?

 Covers all industries: e.g. construction, agriculture,
manufacturing, retail, maintenance, warehouse etc.
 Duty holders are:
• Employers;
• Self-employed; and
• Those in control of people at work, to extent
of their control
What is Electrical Shock?
 An electrical shock is received when electrical current
passes through the body.
 You will get an electrical shock if a part of your body
completes an electrical circuit by…
• Touching a live wire and an electrical ground,
or
• By touching a live wire and another wire at a
different voltage.

How the current works?

 When an electric current passes through the
body, it generates heat and can extensively damage
internal tissues. In some cases, the entry and exit
wounds are so severe that a foot or hand has to be
amputated. The electric current can also stop the

heart.
How can you get an electric shock?
 By poorly insulated Wires
 By ungrounded electrical equipment
 By using electrical equipment while in contact with
water
 By being stuck by lightening

What to do at the time of electric shock?

 Disconnect the power supply, don't even touch the
victim until you are sure that the power supply is
turned off.
 Be especially careful in wet areas such as bathroom
as water conducts electricity supply.
 If the current can’t be turned off, use a non-
conducting object such as broom, chair, rug or
rubber doormat to push the person away from the
source of the current.
 Do not use wet or metal object, if possible stand on
something dry and does not conduct electricity,
such as rubber doormat or folded newspaper's.
What to not do at the time of electric
shock?
 Don’t touch the person with your bare hands if the
body is still touching the source of electricity.
 Don’t apply ice, butter, ointments, medication,
fluffy cotton dressings or adhesive bandages.
 Don’t remove dead skin or break blister's if the
person has been burned.

Dangers of Electrical Shock

 Currents above 10 mA* can paralyze or “freeze”
muscles.
 Currents more than 75 mA can cause a rapid,
ineffective heartbeat – death will occur in a few
minutes unless a defibrillator is used.
 75 mA is not much current – a small power drill

uses 30 times as much.

Defibrillator
in use
 Effects on human body

• Time of contact, I = 0.165 / t,

• t = 0.03 to 3 sec for I = 40 to 50 mA will cause death

Human body resistance

 Human body resistance (hand to hand) across the
body is about 1000Ω.
 Product safety standards consider 5mA to be safer
upper limit for children and adults.
 Ohms law: I=V/R amps.
• =480volts/1000Ω
• =0.48amps (480mA)
Electrical Injuries
 The most common shock-related, nonfatal injury is a
burn.
 Burns caused by electricity may be of three types:
• Electrical burns,
• Arc burns, and
• Thermal contact burns.

Electrical Burns
 An electrical burn is a burn that results from
electricity passing through the body causing rapid
injury.
 For a burn to be classified as electrical, electricity
must be the direct cause.

Electrical
Burn
What is an Arc-Flash?
 An arc flash is a release of energy caused by an
electric arc. The flash causes an explosive expansion
of air and metal.
 The blast produces
• A dangerous pressure wave
• A dangerous sound wave
• Extreme heat & Extreme light.

Arc-Flash
Thermal Contact Burns
 Thermal contact burns can occur when electricity
ignites combustible material.
 Thermal contact burns occur when skin comes in
contact with overheated electric equipment, or
when clothing is ignited in an electrical incident.

Thermal contact burn

ARC burn
Safety-Related Work Practices
 To protect workers from electrical shock:

• Use barriers and guards to prevent passage

through areas of exposed energized
equipment.

• Pre-plan work, post hazard warnings and use

protective measures.

• Keep working spaces and walkways clear of

cords.

• Use special insulated tools when working on

fuses with energized terminals.

• Don’t use worn or frayed cords and cables.

• Don’t fasten extension cords with staples,

hang from nails, or suspend by wire.
Preventing Electrical Hazards –Planning
 Plan your work with others.
 Plan to avoid falls.
 Plan to lock-out and tag-out equipment.
 Remove jewelry.
 Avoid wet conditions and overhead power lines.

Preventing Electrical Hazards – PPE

 Proper foot protection (not tennis shoes).
 Rubber insulating gloves, hoods, sleeves, matting,
and blankets.
 Hard hat (insulated - nonconductive).

Preventing Electrical Hazards – Proper

Wiring and Connectors
 Use and test GFCI’s (Ground fault circuit
interrupter).
 Check switches and insulation.
 Use three prong plugs.
 Use extension cords only when necessary & assure
in proper condition and right type for job.
Regulations on Safety
 CEA Safety Regulations, 2010
 Electricity Act, 2003
• Setting up State Electricity Regulatory
Commission (SERC) has been made mandatory

Training
Train employees working with electric equipment in safe
work practices, including:
 DE energize electric equipment before inspecting or
repairing.
 Using cords, cables, and electric tools that are in
good condition.
 Lockout / Tag out recognition and procedures.
 Use appropriate protective equipment

Advantage
 Improved staff morale
 Increase work efficiency
 Reduced risk and stress
 Safety and health work environment
 Increase skills for health protection
 Literature review
Job title: Application of functional safety to electrical power
equipment and systems in process industries

Author: Janardhanan Kallambettu, Venkatesh Viswanathan

Description:

• Functional safety is part of the overall safety relating to

the process and the control system controlling the
process, that depends on the correct functioning of the
active protection layers.
• The functional safety standard provides guidelines to
identify the target performance and manage the
protection system for the entire safety life cycle covering
specification, design, implementation, installation,
commissioning, operation, maintenance, modifications
and decommissioning activities associated with the
protection system.
• A well-managed protection system as per IEC 61511
will have the required integrity with adequate
defenses against systematic failures. Internationally,
the process industries accepted the functional safety
standard IEC 61511 and is in use for the past two
decades.
• The process safety deals with the incidents due to
process, process equipment, control system controlling
the process, and human interaction failures.
• The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the United
Kingdom requires the following related to electrical
power systems in chemical manufacturing processes
(HSE and UK, 2017):

• conduct a formal risk assessment of the fire and explosion

risks arising from the electrical power supply and

distribution systems;

• establish a management system to design, install, operate

and manage the electrical equipment and protection

system;
Job title: Achieving safe hands-on defibrillation using
electrical safety gloves – A clinical evaluation
Author: Charles D. Deakin, Jakob E. Thomsen, Bo Løfgren,
Graham W. Petley

Description:
• Safe hands-on defibrillation (HOD) will allow
uninterrupted chest compression during
defibrillation and may improve resuscitation
success. We tested the ability of electrical
insulating gloves to protect the rescuer during
HOD using a ‘worst case’ electrical scenario.
• Leakage current flowing from the patient to the
‘rescuer’ during antero-lateral defibrillation of
patients undergoing elective cardioversion was
measured. The ‘rescuer’ maintained firm (20
kgf) contact with the patient during
defibrillation, wearing Class 1 electrical
insulating gloves while simulating an
inadvertent contact with the patient, through an
additional wired contact between ‘rescuer’ and
patient.
• The quality of external chest compression during
resuscitation is crucial to successful
defibrillation, admission to hospital alive and
survival to hospital discharge.
• Rescuers were unable to perceive current flowing for
any shocks, irrespective of energy. The median RMS
leakage current over the duration of defibrillator
discharge was 21 A (range: 2–106). Closer inspection
of data revealed six data sets that contained noise of
unknown origin that was not associated with
defibrillator discharge. Exclusion and reanalysis of
remaining data gave a median current over all energies
of20A(range:2–38).

• When using Class 1 electrical insulating gloves for

hands-on defibrillation, rescuer leakage current is
significantly below the 1 mA safe threshold,
allowing safe hands-on defibrillation if the rescuer
makes only one other point of contact with the
patient.
Job title: Safety risk management for Electrical transmission
and distribution line construction.

Author: Alex Albert, Matthew R. Hallowell

Description:
• Prior research has established that electrical contractors
involved in the construction and maintenance of electrical
transmission and distribution (T&D) lines are at
extremely high risk of electrocution. The result of
inadvertent contact with T&D lines often is death or
severe injury that involves damage to internal organs,
musculoskeletal disorders, neurological damages and
severe burns.
• The Electrical Safety Foundation International has
demonstrated that contact with overhead power lines has
been the single largest cause of electrical fatalities over
the last decade. To reduce this disproportionate injury
rate, electrical contractors implement many strategies
such as the use of rubber insulating equipment, and
locking devices.
• Unfortunately, these strategies are often cost-prohibitive
in certain construction and maintenance scenarios.
Therefore, electrical contractors are faced with complex
decisions that involve comparing the cost of injury
prevention with the expected safety benefit.
• The research team then developed a decision support
framework that provides electrical contractors with
objective safety and cost feedback given specific project
characteristics. The results indicate that many of the
effective strategies implemented to reduce T&D
 electrical injuries are very costly (e.g., de-energizing
lines).
• Consequently, under most conditions, the costs of injury
prevention far outweigh the cost savings associated with
the reduction of injury rates. The implication of these
findings is that T&D electrical contractors must highly
value the non-monetary benefits of injury prevention in
order to improve safety in their sector.
Job title: Electrical hazard analysis during assembly,
integration and testing of solar arrays
Author: J.M. Kuiper, R. van der Heijden

Description:
• The development of photo-voltaic over the last decade
shows an increase of almost a factor two in efficiency
from mono-crystalline silicon to the modern multi-
junction solar cells.
• Recent developments in system optics using
concentrators, or splitting up spectral bands through
different light paths to different types of solar cells,
prove that efficiencies of up to 60–70% are achievable.
This significant growth in efficiency of solar arrays,
however, increases the focus on lethal electrical
biasing incidents.
• Typical solar array sections, voltage bias cases,
leakage resistance and light sources are chosen to
assess the magnitudes of electrical direct currents.
Photometric theory is applied to solar cell assemblies
and linked to a simulation model for the electrical
performance of solar arrays.
• This enables a worst case static analysis for the
ultimate electrical hazard without any precautions: a
wet hand touching a positive connector pin or string
end bar in combination with a ‘good’ electrical
grounding of the physical body of the engineer. As a
new result, simple equations are derived to estimate the
hazard currents for the full scope of solar arrays.
Job title: Electrical safety in the operating theatre.
Author: Stephen Graham

Description:

• Electrical safety in the operating theatre is often

regarded as being of historical interest only. The
reality is that the theatre environment is becoming
more electrically complex by the year.
• As the paranoia of the era of flammable anesthetics
recedes, the potential for problems with the
introduction of newer flammable substances
increases.
• More complications arise with the networking of
electronic equipment which may not conform to the
rigid safety standards of conventional medical
equipment. The risk posed by medical equipment
varies, and to aid the operator a series of
classifications have been devised. The precise
description is complex, and is detailed in a series of
international standards known collectively as IEC
60601 (EN60601 in the UK).
• Although injuries resulting from electrical events
are rare, this is only because of improved regulation
of medical equipment and increased awareness of
the risks involved. As the problems become rare, the
appreciation of the risks diminishes, with the
possibility that the problems may re-emerge with
modifying technologies.
REFRENCES:

[1] Janardhanan Kallambettu P.Eng., Principal

Engineer-Control Systems, Venkatesh Viswanathan
P.Eng., Senior Electrical Engineer, Bechtel, TX,
USA.

[2] Charles D. Deakina,∗, Jakob E. Thomsena,b, Bo Løfgrenb,c,d, Graham W.

Petleye NIHR Southampton Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit,
University Hospital Southampton, Southampton, UK b Research Center for
Emergency Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark c
Department of Internal Medicine, Regional Hospital of Randers, Randers,
Denmark d Institute of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus,
Denmark e Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton,
Southampton, UK

[3] Alex Albert , Matthew R. Hallowell, Department of Civil,

Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado, 428
UCB, 1111 Engineering Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.

[4] J.M. Kuiper a,, R. van der Heijden b a

Delft University of
Technology, Chair Space Systems Engineering, Kluyverweg 1-
2629HS, Delft, The Netherlands b Dutch Space B.V., Mendelweg 30-
2333 CS, Leiden, The Netherlands
[5] Stephen Graham, Department of Anaesthesia, James Cook University
Hospital, Marton Road, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, TS4 3BW, UK