On March 7, 2025, Sandia researcher David Rosewater was awarded the IEEE IAS Electrical Safety Committee’s Young Professional Achievement Award at the 2025 IEEE Electrical Safety Workshop in Jacksonville, FL, USA. At this conference, Rosewater presented his latest research on practical battery arc flash models, which has the potential to greatly impact battery electrical safety by addressing a long-standing problem.
The Young Professional Achievement Award recognizes individuals who demonstrate outstanding service, dedication, implementation, or promotion of electrical safety within their organizations or through contributions to the IEEE IAS Electrical Safety Committee objectives. Rosewater’s research to advance battery worker safety, his contributions to electrical safety standards, and his work to develop a battery safety training class at Sandia National Laboratories were all highlighted during the awards ceremony. This award acknowledges the tremendous impact of Rosewater’s efforts to advance electrical safety.
Rosewater’s latest research on practical battery arc flash models represents a significant milestone in battery worker safety. Arc flash occurs when a battery is short-circuited, causing an arc of electricity to pass through the air near a worker, potentially resulting in severe burns and other injuries. The most widely used method to calculate the energy in the arc has been found to overestimate the hazard faced by battery workers by an average of 12 calories per square centimeter (cal/cm²) across over 200 published battery arc flash experiments. This discrepancy can mean the difference between simply wearing non-flammable clothing and safety glasses versus donning a full-body protective suit with a hood that reduces visibility, manual dexterity, and accelerates heat exhaustion. The proposed model reduces the average estimation error by 90%, bringing it down to only 1.2 cal/cm². This more accurate model for battery arc flash hazard will prevent the overprescription of protective equipment while ensuring worker safety and reducing labor costs associated with battery installation, maintenance, and removal.
The IEEE Electrical Safety Workshop is the primary technical conference for electrical safety worldwide. Research presented at the workshop has commonly led to changes in international electrical safety standards such as NFPA 70E and CSA Z462.
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity (OE), Energy Storage Division.