Laboratory Safety: Electric Safety

Content Outline
Electrical system Care and use of electrical systems Electrical shock

Electrical System
The electrical requirement for laboratory must meet the standard and properly inspected before being put into service.

Electrical System
Many of the older electrical system were originally designed based on two wire circuit. Any circuit of the older type should be replaced as soon as possible.

Electrical System
All circuit whether original equipment or added later should consist of three wires: Life, Neutral, Earth

Electrical System
COLOUR CODING Green or green/yellow stripes - Earth Red, brown - Life Black or blue - Neutral
Commercial Coding for AC Wiring Service Life Ground / Earth US Black Green Europe Brown Blue Green/Yellow UK Brown Blue Green/Yellow

Common / Neutral White

Electrical System
Ground connection should be high quality, low impedance and should be of comparable quality. Poor quality ground can result in a substantial difference of potential . This cause significant problems in modern solid state electronics equipment which operate at voltage less 24V (frequently at 3, 5 or 6V). Further problem from a poor ground is that leakage current through the high impedance ground connection can developed a significant amount of localised electrical heat. This is often the source of an electrical fire, rather than a short circuit or an overload circuit.

Electrical System
Electrical circuits should be checked with a suitable instrument which is capable of providing a quantitative measure of the ground impedance circuit checkers/tester (indicate the condition of a circuit by a combination of lights can give valid indication of faulty circuit).

Electrical System
There should be enough outlets appropriately distributed in a laboratory so that it should not be necessary to use multiple outlet adapters plugged into a single socket or to require the use of extension cords.

Electrical System
Circuit must be protected by circuit breakers. A circuit breaker is an automatically operated electrical switch designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by overload or short circuit. Unlike a fuse, which operates once and then has to be replaced, a circuit breaker can be reset (either manually or automatically) to resume normal operation. Circuit breakers are made in varying sizes, from small devices that protect an individual household appliance up to large switchgear designed to protect high voltage circuits feeding an entire city.

Electrical System

Low voltage current breaker (MCB)

Internal details

Electrical System
High voltage circuit breaker

Electrical System
Types that are common in domestic, commercial and light industrial applications at low voltage (less than 1000 V) include: MCB (Miniature Circuit Breaker) - rated current not more than 100 A. MCCB (Moulded Case Circuit Breaker) - rated current up to 1000 A.

Electrical System
Electric power systems require the breaking of higher currents at higher voltages. Examples of high-voltage AC circuit breakers are: Vacuum circuit breaker - With rated current up to 3000 A. Air circuit breaker - Rated current up to 10,000 A.

Electrical System
Normally, many breakers for a room or group of rooms are located together on a common breaker panel. All circuit should be identified both within the facility and at the breaker panel, so that when required the power supply to a given circuit may quickly and easily disconnected.

Electrical System
Access to the electrical panels, switches and other electrical equipment in the space must not be blocked by extraneous object and materials. The location of electrical circuits and electrically operated equipment in a room should be such that they are unlikely to become wet or in area susceptible to condensation or where a user might be in contact with moisture. For some equipment, such as refrigerators, freezers and air conditioning units, moisture is likely to be present due to condensation and these equipment items are required to be grounded.

Care and Use of Electrical System

Most of the hazards associated with the use of electricity stem from electrical shock, resistive heating, and ignition of flammables, and most of the actual accidents occur because of a failure to anticipate all of the ways in which these hazards may be evoked in a laboratory situation.

Care and Use of Electrical System

Two major electrical factors need to be considered in the choice of most electrical items of equipment. 1) It will not provide a source of ignition to flammable materials 2) It will minimise the possibility of personnel coming into contact with electricity live components.

Electrical Shock
The effect of electricity on a person depend upon the current level and of course on physiological factors unique to the individual.

Effect of Electrical Current in the human body

Current (mA) 1 5 Reaction Perception level, a faint tingle Slight shock felt; disturbing but not painful. Average person can let go. However, vigorous involuntary reactions to shocks in this range can cause accident. Painful shock, muscular control is lost. Called freezing or let go range *(the person may be thrown away from the contact if the exterior muscles are excited by the shock) Extreme paint, respiratory arrest and severe muscular contractions. Individual normally cannot let go unless knocked away by muscle action; death is possible. Ventricular fibrillation (rhythmic pumping action of heart ceases); muscular contraction and nerve damage occur; death is more likely. Cardiac arrest, severe burns and probable death.

6-25 (women) 9-30 (men) 50-150

1000-4300

10000

Electrical Shock
If the contact resistance to the body is lowered so that the total body resistance to the flow current is low, then even a modest applied voltage can effect the body. The condition of the skin can dramatically alter the contact resistance. Damp, sweaty hands may have a contact resistance which will be some orders of magnitude lower than dry skin.

Electrical Shock
Several means are available to prevent individuals from coming into contact with electricity. These include insulation, grounding, good wiring practices and mechanical devices. Insulation is not used solely to protect wiring. Insulation in the form of panel may break if excessive force is applied. Proper grounding of equipment is another requirement to ensure that the component are not electrically live. Most equipment today for use with 120 V circuits comes with three wire power cord which consist of life, neutral and earth/ground wire. Some equipment is double insulated and does not have the ground wire in the power connector. Usually, these will have a polarized connector so that the neutral and hot wires will be properly oriented.

Electrical Shock
Simple devices such as fuses, circuit breakers and ground fault interrupters are available to cut off equipment when they are overload, short out or an imbalance develops between the input and output current from a device or circuit.

Electrical Shock
Resistive heating is one of the two major electrical sources of ignition of flammable materials in laboratory. Electrical heating can occur in a number of way; poor connection, undersized wiring or electrical component or overload wiring or component or inadequate ventilation of equipment. P = (I)(I)(R) Power or heat released at a given point in a circuit is directly proportional to the resistance at that point. A current of 100mA through a connection which has a resistance of 0.1 would generate a localised power dissipation of 1mW while a poor connection of 10000 resistance would result in a localised power dissipation of 100W. 10mW would probably cause little problem while 100W might raise the local temperature high enough to exceed the ignition temperature of material in the vicinity.

Electrical Shock
Each size of gauge wire is designed to carry a maximum amount of current. Overloading them will cause a larger voltage drop and power dissipation (heating) in the wire. The heat developed in an overload circuit may heat the wiring to a point where the insulation may fail or in extreme cases actually catch on fire.

e.g: Electrical characteristic of wire per 50 feet

Wire size (AWG) 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 3 2 1 0 Resistance () 0.3318 0.2087 0.1310 0.0825 0.0518 0.0329 0.0205 0.0129 0.0103 0.00809 0.00645 0.00510 Max. Ampere (I) 7 10 15 20 30 40 55 70 80 95 110 125 Voltage drop (V) 4.6 4.2 3.9 3.3 3.1 2.6 2.3 1.81 1.64 1.53 1.42 1.27 Power loss (W) 32 42 59 61 93 105 124 127 131 138 156 159

Electrical Shock
Wire gauge is a measurement of how large a wire is, either in diameter (mm) or cross sectional area (mm2). This determines the amount of electrical current a wire can safely carry. There are 2 types of gauge wire: 1. American gauge wire (A.W.G) 2. Standard wire gauge (S.W.G) Notes: Different types will have different set of values.

Electrical Shock
The sizes of wire are estimated by gauges which consist of plates of circular or oblong form having nothes of different widths round the edges to receive wire of different thicknesses. Each notch is stamped with a number and just fits the wire to a given notch.

Gauge

Electrical Shock
SWG 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 Diameter (mm) 1.626 1.219 0.914 0.711 0.559 0.457 0.376 0.315 0.274 0.234 0.193 0.152 0.122 0.102

Wires are manufactured to standard sizes. The real wire will be labelled with the types of wire and the SWG. As the SWG inceases the diameter decreases. As the diameter increase the current increase. As the diameter increase the voltage increase.

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