Identification of Electrical Fire Melted Marks of Copper Wires by Electron Backscattered Diffraction (EBSD)

A variety of electrical apparatus used in daily life can cause fires because of internal or external factors. During cause identification of an electrical fire, the first short circuit melted marks of copper wire have been considered highly important because they are direct proofs. Additionally, overloaded short circuit caused by the overload of current due to excessive electrical usage can give rise to an electrical fire. Despite extensive research on the first short circuit in fire scenes, the overloaded short circuit remains difficult to be distinguished because of the limitation of commonly used testing methods. Conventional metallographic method is intuitionistic and simple, but may not provide detailed data of crystals such as misorientation of grains. Here a new method (electron backscattered diffraction, EBSD) is applied for identification of the first and overloaded short-circuited melted marks of copper wires in electrical fire scenes. Results show obvious morphological distinctions in melted marks of copper wires between the first and overloaded short circuits. Qualitative and Quantitative differences obtained from the contrast of the above two short circuit situations may assist for cause identification of electrical fires in the future.