Tag Archives: November

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Outdoor Deicing & Snow Melting

Electrical Safety

“Snow at Argenteuil” | Claude Monet (1875)

Today our focus turns to outdoor electric deicing and snow melting wiring systems identified as suitable for the environment and installed in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.  They work silently to keep snow load from caving in roofs and icicles falling from gutters onto pedestrian pathways.

While the voltage and ampere requirement of the product itself is a known characteristic, the characteristic 0f the wiring pathway — voltage, ampere, grounding, short circuit, disconnect and control — is relatively more complicated and worthy of our attention.   Articles 426-427 of the National Electrical Code is the relevant part of the NEC

Free Access 2023 National Electrical Code

Insight into the ideas running through technical committee deliberations is provided by a review of Panel 17 transcripts:

2023 NEC Panel 17 Public Input Report (633 pages)

2023 NEC Panel 17 Public Comment Report (190 pages)

We hold Articles 427 in the middle of our priority ranking for the 2023 NEC.   We find that the more difficult issues for this technology is the determination of which trade specifies these systems — architectural, electrical, or mechanical; covered in previous posts.   Instead, most of our time will be spent getting IEEE consensus products in step with it, specifically ANSI/IEEE 515 and IEEE 844/CSA 293.

Comments on the Second Draft of the 2026 NEC will be received until April 18th.

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We collaborate with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facility Committee which meets online 4 times per month in European and American time zones.  Since a great deal of the technical basis for the NEC originates with the IEEE we will also collaborate with IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 18 whose members are charged by the IEEE Standards Association to coordinate NFPA and IEEE consensus products.

Issue: [19-151]

Category: Electrical, Energy

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey, Kane Howard, Jose Meijer


LEARN MORE:

IEEE Standard for the Testing, Design, Installation, and Maintenance of Electrical Resistance Heat Tracing for Commercial Applications

844.2/CSA C293.2-2017 – IEEE/CSA Standard for Skin Effect Trace Heating of Pipelines, Vessels, Equipment, and Structures–Application Guide for Design, Installation, Testing, Commissioning, and Maintenance

 

Industrial electroheating and electromagnetic processing

The global standards for heat tracing systems are developed by IEC Technical Committee 27.  The scope of work for this committee is reproduced below:

Standardization in the field of industrial equipment and installations intended for electroheating, electromagnetic processing of materials and electroheat based treatment technologies Note: The scope of interest covers industrial installations with the use of the following equipment: – equipment for direct and indirect resistance heating; – equipment for electric resistance trace heating; – equipment for induction heating; – equipment using the effect of EM forces on materials; – equipment for arc heating, including submerged arc heating; – equipment for electroslag remelting; – equipment for plasma heating; – equipment for microwave heating; – equipment for dielectric heating; – equipment for electron beam heating; – equipment for laser heating; – equipment for infrared radiation heating. The list presents typical examples of equipment and its applications and is not exhaustive.

CLICK HERE for the link to the TC 27 Strategic Business Plan

Titles in this committee’s bibliography appears to be stable.   As with all IEC titles, they are relatively narrow in scope compared with the titles promulgated by most US standards developing organizations.  Our interest lies primarily in the application of this technology within and around education community buildings.

While heat tracing generally goes un-noticed it is an essential part of cold weather safety.  It is wise to keep pace with its evolution with innovation in materials and controls with the lead.

We maintain this committee’s work on the standing agenda of our seasonal Snow & Ice colloquia; along with US standards developed by UL, IEEE, NEMA, NFPA, ICC, ASHRAE and a few others.  We also collaborate with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee on this topic.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

 

Issue [18-332]

Category: Electrical

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Lorne Clark, Jim Harvey

 

“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”

Randall Thompson’s “Frostiana” is a choral cycle based on the poems of Robert Frost. The cycle consists of settings for mixed chorus and piano, and it was premiered in 1959. “Frostiana” was commissioned to celebrate the bicentennial of the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, and it features seven of Frost’s poems set to music by Thompson.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of the poems included in the “Frostiana” cycle. The composition captures the reflective and contemplative mood of Frost’s poem, where the narrator pauses to admire the beauty of a snowy evening in a quiet forest. Randall Thompson’s musical setting adds another layer to Frost’s words, enhancing the emotional impact of the poem.

Thompson’s approach in “Frostiana” is characterized by its accessibility and tonal clarity. His settings aim to convey the meaning and atmosphere of Frost’s poetry through the expressive power of choral music. The entire “Frostiana” cycle is a celebration of both Thompson’s skill as a composer and Frost’s enduring contribution to American literature.

Acoustics

 

Voting Precincts

Today we refresh our understanding of the standard of care for hosting elections in public spaces such as schools, colleges and universities.

In the United States, polling places can be located in a variety of public and private facilities, not just in public schools. While public schools are commonly used as polling places due to their widespread distribution and accessibility, they are not necessarily the largest proportion of polling places nationwide. The specific locations of polling places can vary by jurisdiction and are determined by local election officials. Other common polling place locations include community centers, churches, libraries, government buildings, and private residences.

The selection of polling places is based on factors like accessibility, convenience, and the need to accommodate a specific number of voters within a given precinct or district. The goal is to ensure that voters have reasonable access to cast their ballots on election day. The use of public schools as polling places is widespread but not universal, and the distribution of polling places across various types of facilities can vary from one region to another.

2024 International Building Code Appendix E: Supplementary Accessibility Requirements

NFPA 730 Guide to Premises Security: 2026 First Draft Report | Consultation closes January 3, 2025

“Election Day” 1944″ Norman Rockwell

The political party that claims that “democracy is at stake” today’s election is the same political party that seeks to federalize state election laws, pack the Supreme Court, remove the Electoral College, remove US national borders and abolish voter identification will be voting in today’s off-year elections.   In other words: it wants to abolish democracy.  Its partisans have long since metastasized in education communities where polling places for students, faculty, staff and nearby residents are hosted.

Join us in post-irony America today when we focus only on the safety and environmental condition of these polling places.   Where there is closer agreement.  Catalogs, titles, chapters, sections and passages that inform best practice on this topic:

Can Voters Detect Malicious Manipulation of Ballot Marking Devices?

 

International Code Council

International Building Code

A117 Accessible and Useable Buildings and Facilities

National Fire Protection Association

Life Safety Code

Premises Security

ASHRAE International

Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy

Illumination Engineering Society

Designing Lighting for People and Buildings

Security 100

Sacramento County: Polling Place and Vote Center Management

 

Can Voters Detect Malicious Manipulation of Ballot Marking Devices?

 

Can Voters Detect Malicious Manipulation of Ballot Marking Devices?

Matthew Bernhard, et. al

University of Michigan

 

Abstract:  Ballot marking devices (BMDs) allow voters to select candidates on a computer kiosk, which prints a paper ballot that the voter can review before inserting it into a scanner to be tabulated. Unlike paperless voting machines, BMDs provide voters an opportunity to verify an auditable physical record of their choices, and a growing number of U.S. jurisdictions are adopting them for all voters. However, the security of BMDs depends on how reliably voters notice and correct any adversarially induced errors on their printed ballots. In order to measure voters’ error detection abilities, we conducted a large study (N = 241) in a realistic polling place setting using real voting machines that we modified to introduce an error into each printout. Without intervention, only 40% of participants reviewed their printed ballots at all, and only 6.6% told a poll worker something was wrong. We also find that carefully designed interventions can improve verification performance. Verbally instructing voters to review the printouts and providing a written slate of candidates for whom to vote both significantly increased review and reporting rates-although the improvements may not be large enough to provide strong security in close elections, especially when BMDs are used by all voters. Based on these findings, we make several evidence-based recommendations to help better defend BMD-based elections.

 

IEEE provides this article for public use without charge.

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