Electrical Safety Regulations Research Articles

Internet of Things-Based ECG and Vitals Healthcare Monitoring System.

Health monitoring and its associated technologies have gained enormous importance over the past few years. The electrocardiogram (ECG) has long been a popular tool for assessing and diagnosing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Since the literature on ECG monitoring devices is growing at an exponential rate, it is becoming difficult for researchers and healthcare professionals to select, compare, and assess the systems that meet their demands while also meeting the monitoring standards. This emphasizes the necessity for a reliable reference to guide the design, categorization, and analysis of ECG monitoring systems, which will benefit both academics and practitioners. We present a complete ECG monitoring system in this work, describing the design stages and implementation of an end-to-end solution for capturing and displaying the patient's heart signals, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and body temperature. The data will be presented on an OLED display, a developed Android application as well as in MATLAB via serial communication. The Internet of Things (IoT) approaches have a clear advantage in tackling the problem of heart disease patient care as they can transform the service mode into a widespread one and alert the healthcare services based on the patient's physical condition. Keeping this in mind, there is also the addition of a web server for monitoring the patient's status via WiFi. The prototype, which is compliant with the electrical safety regulations and medical equipment design, was further benchmarked against a commercially available off-the-shelf device, and showed an excellent accuracy of 99.56%.

Fabricating a Portable ECG Device Using AD823X Analog Front-End Microchips and Open-Source Development Validation.

Relevant to mobile health, the design of a portable electrocardiograph (ECG) device using AD823X microchips as the analog front-end is presented. Starting with the evaluation board of the chip, open-source hardware and software components were integrated into a breadboard prototype. This required modifying the microchip with the breadboard-friendly Arduino Nano board in addition to a data logger and a Bluetooth breakout board. The digitized ECG signal can be transmitted by serial cable, via Bluetooth to a PC, or to an Android smartphone system for visualization. The data logging shield provides gigabytes of storage, as the signal is recorded to a microSD card adapter. A menu incorporates the device’s several operating modes. Simulation and testing assessed the system stability and performance parameters in terms of not losing any sample data throughout the length of the recording and finding the maximum sampling frequency; and validation determined and resolved problems that arose in open-source development. Ultimately, a custom printed circuit board was produced requiring advanced manufacturing options of 2.5 mils trace widths for the small package components. The fabricated device did not degrade the AD823X noise performance, and an ECG waveform with negligible distortion was obtained. The maximum number of samples/second was 2380 Hz in serial cable transmission, whereas in microSD recording mode, a continuous ECG signal for up to 36 h at 500 Hz was verified. A low-cost, high-quality portable ECG for long-term monitoring prototype that reasonably complies with electrical safety regulations and medical equipment design was realized.

Assessment of the Extent of Electrical Safety Practices Among Staff and Students of Electrical Engineering Department of Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria

Researchers globally conducted several studies on electrical safety awareness and practices for improving occupational safety and health of workers. However, most of these studies were limited to industry workers, with few focusing on academic workshops/laboratories, and almost none in the case of Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. This study therefore, aims to assess the extent of electrical safety practices among staff and students of electrical engineering department, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. The authors used descriptive research design in which 50-item structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 42 staff and 99 students of electrical engineering department, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. The results show that staff and students do not strictly observe electrical safety practices in the workshops/laboratories. The results also revealed the common causes of electrical accidents in the workshops/laboratories; nature of frequent electrical accidents; and measures to reduce electrical accidents and promote students’ compliance to electrical safety rules and regulations. The researchers limit this study to only department of electrical engineering in the faculty of engineering. Also, only quantitative data was collected from the respondents, without giving consideration to the in-depth information qualitative data (such as interview) would have provide. As such, conclusions derived using quantitative approach from the respondents relies on the genuineness of the information provided by them. The findings provide the faculty of engineering with a basis to introduce ‘Electrical Safety Awareness and Practices’ course into the curriculum.

On technical requirements for Arc Suppression Reactors in the distribution circuit of 6–35 kV

Development of the technical requirements for arc suppression reactors (ASRs) used for the capacitive current compensation of the single-phase earth fault is a critical task. The corresponding GOST (State Standard) 19470–74 “Oil-Filled Arc Suppression Reactors. Technical Requirements” is no more valid; automatically controlled reactors (with adjustable spacing controlled by magnetic biasing) are the mainstream; and completely new reactor designs, with the capacitor adjustment in particular, have become available. The standard guide for the earth-fault current compensation [1], not taking into account new technologies, has become obsolete. This paper considers the current criteria for the ASR application in the 6- to 35-kV networks and proposes new ones. It is proposed to use the residual earth-fault current, but not the ASR detuning coefficient, as the major criterion for capacitive current compensation of the single-phase earth fault; in this case, new requirements for the ASR and the network conditions characterized by active phase-to-ground and harmonics content currents are specified taking into account the electrical safety regulations. The problem of capacitance asymmetry is considered absolutely and relatively, and it is shown that the use of ASRs controlled by magnetic biasing allows omitting the network balancing and limitation of the asymmetry voltage at the level of 0.75% of the phase voltage. It is proposed to take into account these recommendations during development of an earth-fault current compensation guide and general technical requirements for ASRs and automatic tuning systems.

Harmonic Decomposition in PDE-Based Denoising Technique for Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography

Recent progress in magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) research via simulation and biological tissue phantom studies have shown that conductivity images with higher spatial resolution and accuracy are achievable. In order to apply MREIT to human subjects, one of the important remaining problems to be solved is to reduce the amount of the injection current such that it meets the electrical safety regulations. However, by limiting the amount of the injection current according to the safety regulations, the measured MR data such as the z-component of magnetic flux density Bz in MREIT tend to have low SNR and get usually degraded in their accuracy due to the nonideal data acquisition system of an MR scanner. Furthermore, numerical differentiations of the measured Bz required by the conductivity image reconstruction algorithms tend to further deteriorate the quality and accuracy of the reconstructed conductivity images. In this paper, we propose a denoising technique that incorporates a harmonic decomposition. The harmonic decomposition is especially suitable for MREIT due to the physical characteristics of Bz. It effectively removes systematic and random noises, while preserving important key features in the MR measurements, so that improved conductivity images can be obtained. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed denoising technique is effective for MREIT, producing significantly improved quality of conductivity images. The denoising technique will be a valuable tool in MREIT to reduce the amount of the injection current when it is combined with an improved MREIT pulse sequence.

Implementing electrical safety regulations and standards

Since the creation of OSHA in 1912, there have been continuing changes in regulations, codes and standards impacting work practices and exposure to hazardous electrical energy. These include, but are not limited to, various OSHA regulations, NFPA 70E (1988 & 1995), National Electrical Code and National Electrical Safety Code. These consensus documents are written with the intention to establish lower injury performance expectations, or to offer guidance in developing work practices that lower the risk of personnel injury. In order to have an impact in the workplace, people in the workplace must transform often general or generic expectations or guidance into changes in specific practices that may be unique for their industry, plant or work environment. A successful and effective transformation process typically requires participation and support from management, technology experts, safety professionals, and the work force (whom the changes are intended to protect). This article provides insight in the transformation process used successfully in several companies. While the details may vary from company to company, as well as from different plants within each company, the elements for success are viewed as common.

Electrical safety regulations in the United States, Canada, and Europe

A survey of the procedures of the European organization of the International Commission on Rules for the Approval of Electrical Equipment (CEE) and the activities of several European countries in the field of safety regulations. First-hand observations over the past 3 years and a summary of safety regulations activities in Canada and the United States are presented.