ArcCalc vs. PTW Arc Flash

ArcCalc calculates the incident energy and arc flash boundary and selects the Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for a single point in a simplified power system. Minimum and maximum arcing short circuit currents are calculated using broad tolerances to provide conservative results with estimated system data.

PTW Arc Flash allows you to build a system model for your entire power system. Once the system model is built, the Arc Flash module calculates the incident energy and flash boundary at every location in the power system.

Common Features of ArcCalc and PTW Arc Flash:

  • Calculate incident energy and flash boundary values and selects PPE.
  • Produce standard and custom labels.
  • Produce Energized Work Permits.
  • Calculate arcing fault current values.
  • Automatically determine the trip times from the protective device settings.
  • Contain an extensive library consisting of thousands of protective devices validated by electrical engineers.
  • Follow the calculation methods outlined in the latest release of IEEE 1584 and NFPA 70E

ArcCalc Advantages:

  • Evaluate a single fault location in a simplified network through a simple calculator-style interface.
  • Quickly assess dangerous conditions by determining incident energy and flash boundary values in the field.
  • Low cost ($995 for ArcCalc versus $4495 for smallest PTW combination with Arc Flash).
  • Intelligent default data for arcing fault variables including bus gap and working distance.
  • Automatically applies tolerances to determine min/max arcing fault currents to provide more conservative results with estimated data.

PTW Arc Flash Advantages:

  • PTW Arc Flash Advantages
  • Analyze every bus using a fully interactive model of an electrical power system.
  • Evaluate multiple levels of protective device settings including mis-coordination.
  • Accumulate energy from multiple parallel fault sources automatically.
  • Integrated with protective coordination drawings to help evaluate alternative designs.
  • Store and compare multiple project scenarios in a single table.
  • Calculate and reports bus,line-side and load-side fault conditions automatically.