Chapter 2

Fundamental Requirements for Safety in Design

2.1

Protection against overcurrent Two aspects:- Overload and Short Circuit Overloads may occur in various circuits, typically motors, transformers and cables. These overloaded circuits are electrically sound but are carrying more current than their rated capacity. Overload may be intentional or unintentional. A starting motor is overloaded. During an outage of a parallel circuit, it may be necessary to overload the remaining circuit for some time. The consequence of overloading is that the equipment will operate at higher temperature than the design limit, which could reduce the life time of the equipment or result in overheating/fire if left unattended. A short circuit is an abnormal low-resistance connection between two points of an electrical circuit that are meant to be at different voltages. Short circuit results in an excessive electric current and may cause danger to life, circuit damage, overheating, fire or explosion. An overload is a cancer slowly attacking the insulation; a short circuit is a heart attack that can cause major damage in a very short time. Protection Against Earth Leakage An earth leakage happens when current flows into earth and not through the intended circuit. Earth is considered at reference or zero potential and the shortest/most preferred for return current. Need For Earth Fault Leakage And Earth Fault Protection

2.2

2.3

The human body is composed of largely water and has very low resistance. Human skin, if not wet or burnt, has much higher resistance. Most of the resistance to the passage of current through the body is at the points of entry and exit through the skin. Human body can withstand only 30mA for 5s or 100mA for 0.5s. Criterion in determining the disconnection time of protective devices.