Equipment failure or an unintentional electrical breakdown or connection can generate an electric arc. Accidents like this happen and they happen fast. What you can do is try and limit the damage by protecting yourself. When working in an environment where there is the risk of exposure to an electric arc hazard, you should wear protective clothing that complies to the international standard IEC 61482-2.
When selecting personal protective clothing to wear in multi-risk environments it is important that not only the outer shell offers the required protection. Also the layers underneath must offer extra protection in case the hazard penetrates the outer layers.
A higher level of ARC protection can be obtained by combining and wearing different ARC protective garments together. Also the air in between the different garments acts as a thermal insulator offering increased protection against the thermal effects of an ARC flash. Using this type of multiple layer solutions offers a high degree of flexibility for workers.
For garments, the arc thermal protection is obtained by evaluation of thermal parameters of the materials from which the garment is made and of the functioning of the closures and accessories. The degree of this arc thermal protection is indicated by the arc protection class (APC 1 or APC2) and/or the arc rating (ATPV, EBT or ELIM). You can increase the level of this protection by combining different garments. The arc rating of this combination of garments however, will be higher than the sum of the separate values of the two individual garments.
In order to easily find your perfect combination of ARC garments, we created a digital ARC Configurator tool to help you with your search for the right level of protection. The tool works according to a layering system. First, you choose a base layer: bodywear, thermal wear or workwear. Depending on the product you choose, a variety of possibilities is generated to combine your first layer with. When clicking on a specific product, the selected combination is shown in detail.
Go to our website, try out the ARC Configurator tool and mix and match until you find the perfect solution for you.