05-10-05 -- Worksite Shock Protection Testing on Track
Bethesda, MD – Initiated last year, the Electrical Contracting Foundation’s research project on Transmission and Distribution Worksite Shock Protection is focused on using equipotential zones to protect ground workers against line-to-ground faults, in conjunction with grounding, isolation (barricading), and insulation techniques. Ten prototype test legs have been fabricated, each simulating a ground worker’s actual leg, for step voltage testing; and researchers are working on a data acquisition system. Preliminary testing has been scheduled for mid-June at Kansas City Power and Light (KCPL) training facilities.This early testing will check the prototype test apparatus and work bugs out of the system; it is not intended to provide data for the study. The research team is also developing mathematical models that will be verified and validated by the testing performed around the country.
This research project requires an innovative approach. “I recently attended a presentation at the Construction Research Congress in San Diego, where a research team was using so-called fuzzy logic to predict tunneling productivity given a multitude of variables,” explains lead research Thomas E. Glavinich, P.E., D.E., at the University of Kansas. “The problem they were addressing is similar to what we face on the worksite protection project, where we have a number of variables that need to be accounted for and can’t be known with certainty.” In this context, fuzzy logic is a problem-solving control system methodology that provides a simple way to arrive at a definite conclusion based upon vague, ambiguous, imprecise, noisy, or missing input information.
“Fuzzy logic mimics how a person would make decisions, only much faster,” Glavinich said. “We’re looking into the possibility of applying fuzzy logic to predicting shock hazard given the physical characteristics of the site and the work being performed.”
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