Internal Arc Fault Test Inside Switchboard As Per IEC 61641

It sounds like you are doing this test without the guidance of someone who has done this before. The best advice anyone can give you is to stop right now and engage the services of a qualified consultant, otherwise the liability will be on you and your company when this happens.

Good grief!

:-O

I dont understand where the problem lies. Whether sleeving of busbar and providing phase barriers is insufficient. So what else is required. I have performed this test in the past, where there we no arc products coming out of the panel, but the arc took a little long to self extinguish and hence there was too much pressure build up, causing the structural components to get slightly bent and damaged. However, there were no effects of arc like burning of indicators or creation of holes, melting of copper etc. I just need some way to reduce the pressure build up.

Relief flaps are already provided. I want to know whether the phase barrier plays any role in early extinguishing of arc. I feel my question is pretty straight forward. your concerns are highly appreciated. Thanks

The problem lies between the chair and the monitor. You say that you've done this in the past, yet you want to know if the phase barrier plays any role in extinguishing the arc.

Phase barriers are there to provide physical separation between, and to prevent inadvertent contact with, live parts, tools, and operators. Once an arc is struck the phase barriers are there to minimize the probability of the arc jumping to other phases/metallic, parts, etc.

No. Stop what you are doing. Since you ask this question, you are not qualified for this type of work. You will kill somebody if you continue. You might even kill me.

As the French guard said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries."

You seem focussed on pressure reduction. This can be done by using vents with spring-loaded lids of soe kind. A better solution is to look at tripping the incomer in the event of an arcing fault, There are photocell sensor-based devices for this. This is one step earlier and therefore better than pressure reduction. However, the best is to prevent any arcing fault happening in the switchboard....why should there be any chance of this in a well-designed busbar chamber at all ?

IEC 61641 tests the safety of a switch when an arc fault happens, not how to prevent an arc flash. The link shows how one of the certified testing companies performs a test on one of their designs. (No surprise here, their design passes.) In contrast here are some other tests done at another certified firm that are IMHO marginal at best.

This type of design work is not for amateurs to glean information from a public forum so they can pass their school work. I shudder to think that somebody with the responsibility to design what looks like this caliber of safety rated equipment would come to a public forum for critical information.

Can we please not help counterfeiters to undercut legitimate fabricators of safety equipment.

Ah yes, the beautiful MNS system i had seen at Ladenberg when i was working for ABB Heidelberg. i did convince the Indian management to bring the MNS to India. Regrettably, it was preferred by a small premium market. The bean counters predictably shut down the line after some time. However, since arc faults keep happening in inferior switchboards, ABB India did a tidy business in Arc Monitors.

@Redfred, thanks for posting one of our videos :) While possibly in your opinion marginal, this board was tested successfully. What more can be asked of it?

This design had no additional protection and had bare conductors. The challenge was to maintain the IEC 61439 tested design and pass IEC 61641 tests also, without any modifications, which it did.

Assuming the OP's board has passed the product test standard, fitting additional components, such as PVC barriers / covering busbars etc. would almost certainly make the initial temperature rise tests void. You need to consider the complete requirements when developing and understand what your outcomes need to be at the start.

@ redfred, apologies those tests are all failures to show what can happen if you don't design / test your assemblies.

I thought you had given the link to our 61641 videos

Glad to hear "from the horse's mouth" some further feedback on that video I found. I was not sure if the first test in that series was a pass or fail result. This one test is why I made my comment of marginal at best.

Keep up the good work Craig.

I also understand that there is very little chance of happening in a well designed busbar. However, it is the end customer who requires this, and also IEC specifies the intended locations for testing.