During the maintenance of both the GA6 and GA10 ABCB’s it is necessary to manually open and close the Circuit Breaker (CB) in a controlled manner.

Historically since GA6 and GA10 ABCB’s were installed on the system in the 1950’s the methods utilised by current workforce to slow open and close the CB during maintenance never had any bespoke tools provided by the manufacture to reduce the effect of manual handling. The method employed over the years is to extend a spanner with an extendable pole (Photo 1). This has proved an unsatisfactory solution in the past as the practice has resulted in muscular skeletal injuries.

The Pentir team within NW1 have with limited resources been able to develop and manufacture a MKI prototype slow closing device. This solution utilises a torque multiplier in an effort to reduce the manual handling effort required open and close the CB.

There are currently 43 GA10’s and 19 GA6 ABCB on the system

Objectives

The project will deliver a safe method of manual handling the spring loaded CB mechanism which has to be manually opened and closed during maintenance activities.

The key objective is to safe guard the current workforce, This will be delivered in an effort to reduce the manual handling requirements for Maintenance Delivery Electricity (MDE) Substation staff to complete maintenance activities in a manner which will not place unnecessary stresses on their bodies and thus reduce occupational health issues.