A novel approach to arc flash mitigation using passive series filters

Arc flash incidents are among the major safety concerns for personnel working near electrical equipment. Most of the literature approaches arc flash mitigation through modified protection schemes that attempt to limit the amount of time that an arc fault occurs, in turn minimizing the energy and associated damage of an arc flash incident. In this paper, signature characteristics of an arc fault were studied in the time and frequency domains. This included the simulation of the Andrea arc models and laboratory obtained experimental data. Finally, two passive series filters were designed to prevent potential arcs from gaining sufficient energy to ignite. The effectiveness of the designed filters was demonstrated through computer simulation. Results show that an arc flash can potentially be eliminated completely utilizing either filter.