Safety considerations for electrical heat tracing

With the advent of electrical heat tracing, a number of challenges have confronted the industry to ensure safe and reliable heat tracing operation. Reliability of heat tracing systems can directly affect safety-related operations. As a good example, the safety of process systems should not be dependent on the performance of a single component of the heat tracing system. In this article, the issue of high-impedance, low-current faults in electrical heating cables is addressed. Such faults usually initiate from phase to ground but have currents that are insufficient to trip the circuit protective device. However, the faults can dissipate enough energy to cause fires and other equipment damage.