National Electrical Code ae UI YN CONNECTION fesse Meee eee ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT BREAKERS. ‘This newsletter was previously sent, this is an updated version. Electrical Circuit Breakers Part 1-R This is the first in a series of articles intended to supplement your knowledge beyond the immediate requirements of the NEC. ‘The series will cover the types of circuit breakers that are found in various types of facilities today, The beginning article lays a foundation (a review for many) and progresses to introducing molded case, insulated case, and drawout types with the series ending with the most advanced of all, microprocessor-based circuit protective devices. The following topics are covered In this the first part of the series: Circuit Breakers Defined Circuit Breakers As Switches Current Levels To Be Broken Over-Currents Current and Temperature Circuit Breakers As High Temperature Limit Switches ‘© Ampacities Of Electrical Conductors © Short Circuits ‘Shorts To Ground Arcing Faults Bolted Faults Safety First, Always First NEC Requirements For Circuit Breakers ‘This part of the series begins by defining circuit breakers then delves into some of the nice to know details about the relationships of current, temperature, and ampacities of conductors. The subject of faults and the various types of faults is then covered. The topic of safety, while next to last, is highlighted as being of first order importance. The final topic for this part is a brief listing of some of the general NEC requirements relating to circuit breakers. To minimize the length of this paper, only automatic circuit breaker type overcurrent protective devices are covered. Restated, fuses, and motor starter type overload relays are not covered. Initially those electrical giants, Edison and Tesla; had only lead wire fuses to protect themselves and their equipment from overcurrents. Gazing into that fog that is the future, perhaps we will see these devices become increasingly more intelligent, and general circuit protective devices taking on additional task as system monitors, Circuit Breakers Defined The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defines a circuit breaker as: “A mechanical switching device, capable of making, carrying and breaking currents under normal circuit conditions. Also capable of making and carrying for a specified time and breaking currents under specified abnormal circuit conditions, such as those of a short circuit.” The NEC defines a circuit breaker as “a device designed to open and close a circuit by non-automatic means, and to open the circuit automatically on a predetermined overcurrent without damage to itself when properly applied within it's rating,” While the ANSI and the NEC definitions describe the same family of devices, they do have some differences; the same is true with the actual circuit breakers themselves. They are much the same in general terms; however, there are a number of significant differences, between the many types of electrical circuit breakers installed in various types of facillies today, Circuit Breakers As Switches Both the ANSI and the NEC definitions acknowledge the potential for the legitimate use of circuit breakers as switches. ‘Switches (devices that pass but do not consume electrical energy) are considered as being control devices; thus one may also say that a breaker is a control device, or a controller. A circuit breaker can control and protect an electrical circuit andpeople operating the utilization equipment. An electrical relay is an example of an operating control; it opens and closes the Circuit. Circuit breakers are not designed as replacements for operating controls such as relays, contactors, or motor starters. ‘There is, as you may have intuitively anticipated, an exception. Some circuit breakers are manufactured for use in a specific, type of application. When a circuit breaker is designed to also be routinely used as an on-off switch to control 120 or 277volt florescent luminaires they are marked SWD, for switch duty, This does not mean that a switch duty breaker can be used to ‘manually control a traffic signal light where it will be cycled on and off 1,000 or more times per day. The point is the listing for switch duty (SWD) does not mean a circuit breaker can be used as a high frequency cycling operating control, such as a relay that has a life span rated in tens, if not hundreds of thousands of duty cycles. ‘While circuit breakers can be legitimately and safely used as switches, the frequency and duration of such use is limited. Routinely circuit breakers are manually operated for service-maintenance and repair type activities. With the preceding enhancing our understanding, we can say that circuit breakers can legitimately be used as switches; generally they are not Intended for prolonged repetitive manual breaking and making type control of electrical energy utilization equipment. Current Levels To Be Broken For general consideration, and our immediate purposes, the amounts of current circuit breakers are required to open can be divided into the following three broad current amplitude groups. ‘The first and lowest is rated load or less. For example: a 60 amp low voltage molded case thermal-magnetic breaker must be able to open or close at 48 amps (80% of its rating) or less. Next up in current quantity, this same breaker must be able to open overload level currents. Overloads for our purposes can be understood by reference to the NEC requirements for overload protection for motors, Thermal overloads are commonly sized for some 115% of the motor's nameplate full load amps. A motor with a service factor of one, having a rated load of 10 amps would be overloaded when pulling 11.5 amps or more. Overload currents can for our immediate purposes be considered to be percentages increases above rated normal load current. ‘The third and highest current level grouping is short circuit currents. Short circult (fault) currents can be considered as being fifteen (15) or more times normal rated load currents. In summation, circuit breakers may be called upon to open or close a circuit within a range of from no current flow to as much as fifteen (15) times or more its rated current. For a 100 amp breaker that could 1,500 amps or more. ‘As will be covered later, this high value of short circuit current is routinely exceeded by circuit breakers today. This should not be considered as implying that circuit breakers can open unlimited amounts of current. As will be covered later on, they can not, Over-Currents ‘The National Electrical Code (NEC) defines overcurrent as “any current in excess of the rated current of the equipment or the ampacity of a conductor, Overcurrent (or excessive current) conditions are caused by defective conductor insulation, defective equipment, or an excessive workload burden placed upon the utilization equipment and its electrical circuit. Fuses and circuit breakers provide a level of safety against overcurrent conditions in electrical circus, We therefore routinely say that fuses and circuit breakers. are overcurrent protective devices (OCPD). That is, they protect the circuit's components from too much current. Hopefully this papaerHopefull Current and Temperature ‘The movement of electrons (electricity) in a conductor produces a rise in the temperature of the conductor's material and its outer layer of electrical insulation. Excessive temperature rise (caused by an excessive amount of electron collisions with base material atoms) can result in the melting of the wires material (assumed to be copper by the NEC). Ifitis allowed to rise as high as 1,980 degrees F. For a point of reference, the NEC limits the operating temperature of XHHW type conductor insulation to no more than 194 degrees F. Thus it can be understood that long before the copper wire will begin to melt, the wires insulation material will have melted, and perhaps even burned up. ur first priority, therefore, is the temperature of the conductor's electrical insulating materials. Different types of insulating materials have different maximum design operating temperatures, Circuit Breakers As High Temperature Limit SwitchesElectrical energy is transported throughout an electrical circuit by the conductive path provided by electrically insulated wires. ‘The material that performs the insulation function in the circuit has a high temperature limit far below that of the copper wire. Circuit breakers are routinely sized to limit thermal energy related damage to the electrical insulation material and not the copper wire. This being the case we can say that a circuit breaker limits the temperature of the connected-protected wire's insulation materials Ampacities Of Electrical Conductors Just how hot an electrically insulated wire can get before its insulation melts, suffers damage, or has a decrease in electrical dielectric strength (the ability to perform as an electrical insulator) are well-known facts. The various types of materials used as electrical insulation have been tested and the results listed in what are called ampacity tables in the NEC in article 310. 16 How long an installed conductor's electrical insulation material will last without overload is yet another question. Research is underway to determine the life of an installed insulated conductor. No doubt when completed, it will point to many factors that have a negative impact upon the inservice life of an insulated conductor. For now we can book a safe bet that voltage spikes, vibration, environmental factors such as temperature, dust both electrically and thermally conductive and non-conductive types, UV light, aggressive vapors and fluids, and relative humidity will all be proven to shorten to some degree the life of modern plastic type electrical insulation materials, | suspect that many of these same factors also have a negative impact upon circuit breakers. | do not know of any research that defines the service life of circuit breakers. Nor am | aware of any research underway seeking to determine the service life of circuit breakers. Considering the importance of the safety provided to people and property that circuit breakers provide, itis a bit puzzling as to why such research has not already been undertaken, For many years various types of materials have been used as electrical insulators. Today conductors are made using material {or outer jacketing and for filing in the gaps (indices) between bundled round conductors. These materials may or may not be considered to be electrical insulators. Some medium and high voltage cables are made using materials that are considered to be conductive, or semi-conductive. Some low voltage instrumentation, control, and signal usage type cables are made with a layer of conductive material that acts as a shield to drain off static electrical charges, Short Circuits short circuit is an unintended path through which current can flow. Any time current flows in a path that is not the normal path, we say that the circuit is shorted. Shorts are further defined by the nature of the shorted connection. A direct short is ‘commonly a phase-to-phase short, which is when two hot (un-grounded) wires make unintended contact with each other; a phase-to-phase short circuit has thus been created. ‘circuit breaker must be able to respond to a short circuit, which can present a large current flow in a short period of time. A short circuit unlike an overload (typically a percentage increase of rated load current) presents itself in a very short period of time and will typically be multiples of the load’s normal operating current, Breakers are tested to determine their ability to clear a short circuit without damage to themselves. With a phase-to-phase short, the breaker will be required to open the circuit at the circuit's rated phase-to-phase voltage, This would be the case independent of whether the system being grounded or un-grounded is either wye or delta solidly grounded or un-grounded or resistance (impedance) grounded. Shorts To Ground ‘When an insulated hot wire (un-grounded) un-intentionally makes electrical contact with an electrically conductive-grounded object, a ground fault is created. The term ground fault means that there is a defect in the wire's electrical insulation; and the faulted wire has shorted to ground. Many times a phase-to-phase short will develop into a ground fault, and the other way around. Either a phase-to-phase short can produce a ground fault, or a ground fault can produce a phase-to-phase short. The fault can be in one, two, or three wire's insulation materials, Ground fault type circuit breakers (GFC!) will not be covered in this paper. The short circuit, overload current limiting nature of these types of breakers, however, will be covered. Its only the ground fault or residual current feature of GFCI type breakers that is not covered. A ground fault can develop a current flow that is limited only by the impedance of the circuit and the capacity of the energy source supplying the faulted circuit, Ground faults can occur rapidly and can be either a low impedance type, developing a significant amount of electrical energy, or as an arcing type fault with lite total energy consumed, The common breaker is not designed or calibrated to respond to arcing type shorts to ground, Circuit breakers typically will respond to a short to ground that is of the low impedance type as current levels are typically ‘multiples of load currents to which the circuit breaker has been manufactured to sense and then respond to.‘When installed in a grounded system, such as a center grounded wye system, only about one half of the system's phase-to- phase voltage will be broken by the breaker on a ground type fault. With an un-grounded type system a ground fault on the first phase-to-ground connection does not result in any current flow as the system is not referenced to ground. Yet should a Second ground fault develop, the breaker will be required to break phase-to-phase system rated voltage. With resistance grounded systems, the impedance of the supply system's ground and the circuit's ground fault combine to determine the amount of current drawn. Further, more detailed pursuit of understanding of the various electrical system grounding (earthing) methods used in America is beyond the limiting scope of this paper. | suggest that you read more on grounding, as itis a subject that seems to always open up disagreements. Mr. Hol's book titled Grounding and Bonding, NEC. 250, (product f O2NCT2) is just out and covers this topic much better than | have done. Arcing Faults When a loose connection (a gap) is made in the faulted circuit so loose that the current flow is non-continuous, itis called an arcing or arc fault. This type of circuit defect is much ike a welder using a welding electrode to produce an electric arc. Arcing type faults are the most difficult to locate (due to conductor concealment in conduit or inside of walls and their non-continuous nature) and can be the cause of fires. This type of defect is the opposite of a bolted fault; the circuit impedance is higher and the connection is very irregular (high frequency). The current flows for only a fraction of a second and then cools down and ‘may not flow current, or heat up again and produce an arc across the gap between the two conducting surfaces. During the AC cycle there are two times that the supply circuit voltage goes to zero volts; there are two times when the Circuit's electromotive pressure is zero and an arc cannot be produced. This zero volts time helps to increase the faulted circuit's impedance, This higher impedance makes it more difficult for the arc to re-establish itself again, These types of faults produce heat in a very small area, They can start a fire and not trip a common thermal-magnetic circuit breaker because their energy level is so low and they last for such a short time that they are typically not responded to by a commen circuit breaker. In response to this unique type of circuit defect, a new family of circuit protectors called arc fault circult interrupter (AFC) type circuit breakers has been under development over for the last ten years. Because of the unique components. (microcomputers) of these devices they will not be covered in this short paper. The common circuit breaker will not respond to the development of an arcing type fault due to the low total amount of thermal energy developed by the arc and the very high frequency of the arc. Perhaps one can think of an arcing fault as an embryonic electrical circuit defect, unlike the defect that has fully developed and matured into an adult electrical fault such as a bolted fault. Experience shows that on occasion a short circuit will clear itself before, or during the operation of the OCPD. That is, it will develop into an open circuit. Bolted Faults Occasionally a shorted circuit will evolve that has such a firm connection (to either a grounded conductive object or another hot wire) that its said to be a bolted fault. We are saying that it was not a loose connection, it was not wiggling around. A bolted fault offers less impedance to the flow of current than does an arcing type fault Aloose connection type of fault may produce enough heat to melt or plasticize the conductor's conductive material and cool enough to then produce a joint so firm and secure as to be comparable to a welded joint. Then we would call ita bolted fault. Circuit breakers are typically calibrated to be capable of responding to a bolted type fault. This is because a bolted type fault produces sufficient current flow to cause either the thermal (after some intentional delay) or the magnetic (non-