Safety and Risk Analysis of Standard Protective Measures Against Electric Shock

Electrical safety against electric shock is the process of minimization of the risk of damage to persons through specific protective measures. Safety can be increased by effectively separating persons from energized parts (i.e. protection against direct contact), and by limiting the exposure time to touch voltages in case of failure of electrical equipment (i.e. protection against indirect contact). Is it possible to calculate Safety? Is there a way to predict the level of risk to persons as offered by standard protective measures against electric shock? And even more importantly, what is the level of safety which we can deem as "acceptable"? This paper seeks to respond to these questions by defining, and quantitatively analyzing, both the Safety of different standard protective measures against direct and indirect electric contact, and their related risk exposure, as typically employed in both industrial and commercial power systems.