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In an electric power system, a fault or fault current is any abnormal electric current. For example, a short circuit is a fault in which a live wire touches a neutral or ground wire. An open-circuit fault occurs if a circuit is interrupted by a failure of a current-carrying wire (phase or neutral) or a blown fuse or circuit breaker .
Power fault circuit interrupters (PFCI) located in receptacles are designed to prevent fires caused by glowing connections in wiring or panels. [citation needed] From the receptacle a PFCI can detect the voltage drop when high current exists in a high resistance junction. In a properly designed and maintained circuit, substantial voltage drops ...
A residual-current device (RCD), residual-current circuit breaker (RCCB) or ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) [a] is an electrical safety device that interrupts an electrical circuit when the current passing through a conductor is not equal and opposite in both directions, therefore indicating leakage current to ground or current flowing to another powered conductor.
In semiconductor devices, problems in the device package may cause failures due to contamination, mechanical stress of the device, or open or short circuits. Failures most commonly occur near the beginning and near the ending of the lifetime of the parts, resulting in the bathtub curve graph of failure rates.
Switchgear is a combination of electrical disconnect switches, fuses or circuit breakers used to control, protect and isolate electrical equipment. Switches are safe to open under normal load current (some switches are not safe to operate under normal or abnormal conditions), while protective devices are safe to open under fault current.
Fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) is a subfield of control engineering which concerns itself with monitoring a system, identifying when a fault has occurred, and pinpointing the type of fault and its location. Two approaches can be distinguished: A direct pattern recognition of sensor readings that indicate a fault and an analysis ...
A mercury switch is an electrical switch that opens and closes a circuit when a small amount of the liquid metal mercury connects metal electrodes to close the circuit. There are several different basic designs (tilt, displacement, radial, etc.) but they all share the common design strength of non-eroding switch contacts.
Troubleshooting is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it, and make the product or process operational again.