×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

NFPA 70E 2015

NFPA 70E 2015

NFPA 70E 2015

(OP)
Hello:

Do PEs have to use the latest version of SKM, ETAP, DesignBase, et al that have the 2015 update of NFPA 70E or can they use the versions that only have the 2012 update?

Jimmy2, PE

RE: NFPA 70E 2015

Of course you can do whatever you feel good about and are willing to sign off on. You would have to disclose to your client who is paying you that your study was based on the 2012 version rather than the 2015 version.

If you are calculating arc flash based on IEEE 1584 equations, the changes in the 2015 NFPA 70E will not change the incident energy or arc flash boundary calculation. The information on the label could be impacted.

I'm guessing you already know what the right answer is.

RE: NFPA 70E 2015

(OP)
dpc,

Yes, I do know the answer.

A PE was hired and he did an analysis in January/2015 using ETAP 12.6 which uses the 2012 version of NPFA 70E. I have no misgivings about his calculations, but the NFPA 70E 2015 had already arrived and all the major software houses, ETAP included, had updated their software.

It seems to me that as PE's we are ethically obligated to use the latest updated software to perform an arc flash study and print labels conforming to the latest revision of NFPA 70E.

Jimmy2, PE

RE: NFPA 70E 2015

Since the software uses the same IEEE 1584 equations the results will not change. What would change in the software is the labeling modules would be updated to reflect the new NFPA 70E-2015 label requirements, mainly no more HRC but the actual calculated incident energy on the label. If the labels are not printed via the software it may not be an issue. We created our own labels and the study info gets imported into a custom spreadsheet for the labels. This way we do not worry about the software label modules however we do pay the yearly maintenance fee to stay current

RE: NFPA 70E 2015

My standard answer is that it depends...

Typically Codes are adopted to a project based on when the Purchase Order was signed or as dpc said if the engineering scope was written in a language that points to a specific adoption. Ethically, if the consultant has a maintenance argeement on the Power System Analysis software then they should maintain the latest codes, but if that project was at the end of a code release and the delivery occurs in the new release I would not expect the finished project to adhere to the current release. If the study was not too labor intensive then the PM could use discretion to adopt the latest I code.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources