Development of the Reliability Evaluation System and Procedures for the Arc-Fault Detection Device

Arc-fault Detection Devices (AFDDs) which cut off the electric power supply under the event of a fire are adopted in many countries to protect life and property from electric fires. However, a controversy over proper or unwanted trips persists for some adopters in the real fields. To alleviate the controversy, this paper describes the reliability evaluation system for AFDD which automates and extends the unwanted tripping test in IEC 62606. The developed reliability evaluation system considers various conditions on the power source quality, the physical state of wiring circuits, and running electrical appliances. System controller automatically switches and repeats numerous pre-designed testing conditions in order not to be constrained by time. Also, it measures the electrical and operating information to give objective evaluation results to stakeholders. Consequently, the proposed AFDD reliability evaluation can produce more detailed conditions which make AFDD to show unwanted trips and it might improve the reliability of AFDDs by upgrading their algorithm to detect electric arc.