How exactly (in detail please) does a correctly polarized grounded electrical outlet protect your equipment?

Answer 1

fishing has the only correct information. A few other details:

You mention correctly polarized. This refers to the hot and neutral not being interchangeable. A two wire plug on a lamp is polarized (unless it is really old) so that the screw shell is connected to the neutral and the switch is in the hot path, both are good for safety. If they are backwards, the screw shell would be hot even when the lamp is off, a shock hazard.

The ground on the outlet is to protect you, not the equipment, by causing the circuit breaker to trip if the equipment has a short to the case. While this ground is connected to the neutral (the grounded conductor), none of these functions has anything to do with the earth. Also, the connection of the ground and neutral is only at the service to your house. Any other connection between them is dangerous.

The reference below is another question I answered that has more detail.

Answer 2

depends on exactly what type of equipment. If it is sensitive electrical equipment I would get a surge supressor. even further you can get a tvss transient voltage surge suppressor breaker for you panel. But if the outlet is correctly polarized and all the wiring is correct the outlet would work like this. Think of a supply line that is you black wire. this wire brings electricity to the outlet. The white wire is the return line the brings the electricity back to the panel. and the bare copper is your ground sometimes the ground is also a green wire. The ground wire is connected directly to the ground bus bar in the panel which is supposed to be connected to a ground rod which is driven into the earth. When everything is operating correctly the electricity comes up to the outlet throught your plugged in device and back down to the panel closing the loop. if there was a short in the outlet itself the current would flow through the bare wire back to the panel.

Answer 3

The small prong is the "ungrounded conductor", the larger prong is the "grounded conductor", and the round one is the "ground". Normally, your power cycles through your equipment via the grounded and ungrounded conductors. The safety part is that the grounded conductor and the ground are actually tied together throughout your electrical utility service system and in your breaker box (hence the term 'grounded conductor'). If, for some reason, there is a problem and the ungrounded conductor comes in contact with the metal casing of your equipment, they have attached the ground to the casing so the power goes to the ground, not to your body. That's why they say to not cut off or remove that round ground prong on the plug. If you do, you have removed that alternate path, and may get electrocuted if there's a problem in your equipment. I just finished an industrial maintenance class, and that's the straight stuff on your question. I hope that helps.

Answer 4

In a mains (AC power) wiring installation, the grounding is the wire that carries currents away under fault conditions. This power ground grounding wire is (directly or indirectly) connected to one or more earth electrodes. These may be located locally, be far away in the suppliers network or in many cases both. This grounding wire is usually but not always connected to the neutral wire at some point and they may even share a cable for part of the system under some conditions. The ground wire is also usually bonded to pipework to keep it at the same potential as the electrical ground during a fault. Water pipes often used to be used as ground electrodes but this was banned in some countries when plastic pipe became popular. Wild electricity needs to go to earth , not thru you to get there

Answer 5

If there is excess current , a short, a surge, or electricity from lightning running in on the line, etc., the grounding conducts that electricity AWAY from the equipment, toward, well, wherever it is grounded.
More specific ? The grounding wire has less resistance than the wiring to the equipment.

hence, no damage to equipment.

Answer 6

well for example when lightning strikes the charges get absorb into the ground. The ground is the largest pool for currents and charges, so by grounding electrical outlets instead of the charges going through your equipment and ruining them it automatically gets absorbed into the ground.

I'm pretty sure...I learned it in Physics.

Answer 7

If the live wire shorts onto the casing or chassis the power will have a seperate path to travel down rather than you, it's to protect you.

Answer 8

any type of short will trip the breaker or fuse thus shutting off the current flow therefor protecting every thing