Patent ID: 8395391

Claim:
A method to measure a distance to a naturally-occurring parallel arc fault between a current carrying first wire bundled in a wiring harness having a plurality of parallel running wires and one of a second wire and an air frame, said parallel arc fault emanating from said first wire that has a voltage source and electronic circuit breaker at a first end thereof and a load at a second end thereof, comprising the steps of: prior to occurrence of said parallel arc fault, inserting an output capacitor of known capacitance and an isolating inductor of known inductance on an output of said electronic circuit breaker wherein said output capacitor is electrically interconnected to said first wire and to said one of said second wire and said air frame, and the inductor is in series with the electronic circuit breaker; measuring a resonant frequency of an oscillating arc current when said parallel arc fault occurs around an LCR loop defined by said output capacitor, said first wire, said parallel arc fault and said one of said second wire and said air frame, said oscillating arc current caused by occurrence of said parallel arc fault; detecting and interrupting said parallel arc fault using said electronic circuit breaker; calculating an inductance L of said LCR loop in accordance with said measured resonant frequency and said known capacitance; and utilizing an inherent inductance per unit of length of said first wire K against said one of said second wire and said air frame to determine a distance to fault (DTF) as DTF=0.5(L/K).