There is a saying that "experience is the worst teacher, test comes first before the lesson".
This is true in every aspect. In electrical engineering design, earthing or grounding is almost always the least concern of designers and installers. It is a safety measure mostly taken for granted as the benefits of earthing or grounding are not realized until the occurrence of a fault in the system. The importance of earthing is only known when an earth fault happens, however the occurrence of a fault may only be a split of a second as the protection system has already cleared out the fault.
Do not let the test comes first, do not let an accident happens before you learn your lesson. Always make sure that in every aspect of electrical design, earthing or grounding is taken into consideration.
This sign is a common sight in Petrol / gasoline refilling station.
There is a danger of explosion when using the mobile phone while filling your car with fuel. Is this true or just a myth?
This is just a myth. The mobile phone got no sufficient power to radiate radio frequency which may cause a nearby conducting medium to act as an aerial.
Any conducting object can act as an aerial and collect energy from any radio frequency radiation field. This energy is then released as a spark or arc by failure of insulation.
As part of the safety induction program of our team, each member is required to attend a Power Line Safety Awareness Training Seminar. Despite having known the hazards of electricity through the years of experience in the industry, I did not hesitate to attend the seminar. I believe that it will serve as a refresher course for me
I did not regret attending the seminar. Our speaker has been a former line trade person for 25 years and certified to be a live line worker at 275kV. He left the power company to join a safety training company.
You may have heard about the 700,000+ website and 9,000 servers affected by the supply transformer explosion of "The Planet" data center in Houston, Texas. "The Filipino Engineer" was one of the affected websites making it off line for several days.
A transformer explosion is basically a sign of insulation failure. There are a number of factors affecting insulation failure. These factors include:
While searching the internet for some references, I came across Areva (formerly Alsthom) website. The book on Network Protection and Automation guide provides a comprehensive information on how tos. I found it very essential for any Electrical design engineer.