•So, why is the earth pin made bigger?

1. The earth pin on a plug is longer than the live and neutral pins. This means the earth pin is the first
to connect and the last to disconnect.

When inserting the plug, the earth connection is made before the current carrying contacts of the plug
become live.
•When withdrawing the plug, the current carrying contacts shall separate before the earth connection is
broken.
Thus, the earthing connection is always maintained to improve safety

2. Many wall sockets have safety shutters (see image) on the live and neutral lines to prevent children from
inserting conducting materials which may result in electric shock. Insertion of a longer (earth) pin helps in
opening the shutters, facilitating the insertion of other two pins. These are called Earth-pin operated shutters.

3.It doesn’t allow incorrect plugging

4. 3.) More the thickness of the conductor, less is the resistance path for the current that is to be grounded. This
is for the safety against an electric shock. If there s any leakage current, it would take the lesser resistant path
through the earth pin to ground rather than through the person operating the appliance
Difference between earthing and grounding

Earthing means connecting the dead part (it means the part which does not carries current under normal condition)
to the earth for example electrical equipment’s frames, enclosures, supports etc.
The purpose of earthing is to minimize the risk of receiving an electric shock if touching metal parts when a fault is
present. Generally green wire is used for this as a nomenclature.

Under fault conditions the non-current carrying metal parts of an electrical installation such as frames, enclosures,
supports, fencing etc. may attain high potential with respect to ground so that any person or stray animal touching
these or approaching these will be subjected to potential difference which may result in the flow of a current
through the body of the person or the animal of such a value as may prove fatal.
To avoid this non-current carrying metal parts of the electrical system are connected to the general mass of earth by
means of an earthing system comprising of earth conductors to conduct the fault currents safely to the ground.

Grounding means connecting the live part (it means the part which carries current under normal condition) to
the earth for example neutral of power transformer. It is done for the protections of power system equipment and to
provide an effective return path from the machine to the power source.
For example grounding of neutral point of a star connected transformer.
Grounding refers the current carrying part of the system such as neutral (of the transformer or generator
Reasons for overvoltage in home(break in neutral
wire)
• Resistance of human Body:
• Under dry conditions, the resistance offered by the human body may
be as high as 100,000 ohms
• Under Normal(Wet or broken skin ) condition it is 1000ohms.
“What is an RCD?”
• An RCD is a device that is designed to provide protection against
electrocution or electrical fires by cutting off the flow of electricity
automatically, or actuating an alarm, when it senses a ‘leakage’ of
electric current from a circuit. or RCDs detect fault currents leaking to
earth either through metalwork or unfortunately in some cases
through a person's or animal's body.
• RCBO: Residual Current Circuit Breaker with Over Current Protection
Direct vs indirect contact?
• Direct contact: When some one touch the live part(i.e. R,Y,B)
• Indirect contact: indirect contact if, for example, a fault results in the
exposed metalwork(body) of an electrical appliance, or even other
metalwork such as a sink or plumbing system becoming live.
•
• IΔn =10ma: In hospitals,bathroom or old person houses.
• IΔn =30ma: For protecting people against electric shock in domestic
premises.
• IΔn =100ma:For commercial lighting.(For instance, thirty light fittings with
a leakage of 1mA each, perfectly possible in a large office, would trip a
30mA RCD despite being perfectly safe. Using a 100mA RCD may be
permitted in such circumstances to overcome this)
•
IΔn =300ma:for protection against fire.
• The maximum current at which the person is capable of releasing a
conductor by using muscles directly affected by the current is called “Let
Go Current “.IT IS 9ma FOR MEN
How many equipment can be connected to a RCD.
• This is a particular issue on circuits supplying power to a lot of IT equipment such
as PCs and printers, where 30mA must be used for personal protection and the
general rule of thumb is that no more than ten PCs or other devices can be
connected to each RCD.

•WHY to use high value RCD??

• So why would you ever use a larger RCD at all? It's to prevent "nuisance tripping".
This can occur when a large number of devices are connected to the same circuit,
especially when the devices have electronic controls or surge protection fitted,
which may cause them to have a constant small leakage current to earth. Even if
the continuous leakage current were not sufficient to trip the RCD, spikes and
surges on the power line can cause peaks in earth current that are enough to
push the total leakage current over the trip limit and shut off the circuit. The
same happens when circuits are spread over a large area, as there is more cabling
to pick up spikes caused by interference from other equipment.
Factors in lethality of electric shock
• Current :The higher the current, the more likely it is lethal. Since
current is proportional to voltage when resistance is fixed (ohm's
law), high voltage is an indirect risk for producing higher currents.
• Duration :The longer the duration, the more likely it is lethal—safety
switches may limit time of current flow
• Pathway :If current flows through the heart muscle, it is more likely to
be lethal.
• Age and Sex
Why current kills?
• The principle that “current kills” is essentially correct. It is electric
current that burns tissue, freezes muscles, and fibrillates hearts.
However, electric current doesn’t just occur on its own: there must be
voltage available to motivate electrons to flow through a victim. A
person’s body also presents resistance to current, which must be
taken into account.
Why AC is more dangerous than DC?
• AC's alternating nature has a greater tendency to throw the heart's pacemaker neurons into a
condition of fibrillation, whereas DC tends to just make the heart stand still. Once the shock
current is halted, a "frozen" heart has a better chance of regaining a normal beat pattern than a
fibrillating heart. This is why "defibrillating" equipment used by emergency medics works: the jolt
of current supplied by the defibrillator unit is DC, which halts fibrillation and gives the heart a
chance to recover.
• Direct current (DC), because it moves with continuous motion through a conductor, has the
tendency to induce muscular tetanus quite readily. Alternating current (AC), because it alternately
reverses direction of motion, provides brief moments of opportunity for an afflicted muscle to
relax between alternations. Thus, from the concern of becoming "froze on the circuit," DC is more
dangerous than AC.
• Fibrillation:Ventricular fibrillation is an irregular and uncoordinated contraction of the cardiac
muscle of ventricles. It is a common cause of cardiac arrest and is usually fatal if not reversed by
defibrillation.
 hand-in-the-pocket
• "hand-in-the-pocket" practice for engineers and electrical workers. If
you keep one hand in your pocket when touching a circuit which
might provide a shock, you are less likely to have the kind of path to
ground which will result in a serious shock.