I will stay away from the "You Should Never Do That" stuff, as it's been mentioned and understood (plus is not very relavent to explain what may have occured to keep the OCPD from tripping).
I have seen quite a few faults which had odd results.
Many of these faults took out the OCPD _AHEAD OF_ the Branch Circuit involved.
When no OCPD was activated, the reason was from one of two culprites: Inadequate Fault Path, or Frames known to have issues with "low level trip".
The GE THQB Series is "Trippable" (IMO), as I have not yet experienced these Frames to exibit the "No-Blow Zinsco" and similar non-trip hazards.
Here are my ideas per this thread's scenario:
1: The original "Fault Via Jewelry" most likely consisted of conduction paths through Gold with high impurities (like 10 Carat Gold). The lower Gold content is to obtain a higher strength alloy, which stands up better to normal wear.
Conductivity of "Pure Gold" ranks something like 24% of Copper, so right off the start we have a low Conductivity material.
Include the Alloys doped into the material, and the Conductivity drops even lower.
2: Next, let's look at the _Overall Conductivity_ of the Equipment Grounding, between the Outlet and the Panelboard.
If the Jewelry Fault _AND_ the Intentional "Jumper Fault" were done between the Ungrounded Blade of a Receptacle and something connected to the Metallic Equipment of that Outlet's Box (be it the plate screw, Ground Pin, etc.), and the connections of the raceway are loose, this will not allow a solid connection to be established.
3: The internal connection points of the Receptacle may have become "Plated" with low conductivity Gold, during the "Jewelry Fault", resulting in an internal low conductivity situation.
If the Equipment Grounding "Path" via Conduit has loose Locknuts, loose Couplings, and similar, than the Ground Faults experienced will be really noisy + sparky, yet fall short of sustaining a steady fault current level, which would allow the OCPD to trip.
The "Jumper Wire" burned up, due to the Arcing and instantanious heat generated at the terminations.
The "Jumper Wire" may have been a short piece of #12 cu, and when thrown in an L-G conduction path, could have easilly drawn 100 Amps for 1-2 Seconds, dropping to 50 Amps for an additional 2 Seconds, and tapering down as the contact resistance increases (due to the heat created).
To a "Commonly Used" Low Power Frame, this scenario looks very much like a hard start Motor, or some kind of Inductive Load (even a Tungsten Load).
The Time-Current characteristics of this frame will allow such a Load Characteristic to operate as normal (hopefully!!!), without initiating an automatic trip.
The "Jewelry Fault" may have eventually tripped the Branch Circuit Breaker, had the conduction state remained steady.
Likely, the melting of the material resulted in less current flowing over time, to the point where the material separated and the circuit became open.
If the Jewelry Fault was able to Increase the current level, at some point an OCPD somewhere would have been tripped.
If the Branch Circuit Breaker was not able to react, then the OCPD protecting the Panelboard which contained that Branch Breaker, would have tripped.
If that could not trip - and the fault level continued to rise (or remained above the rating of the largest OCPD for this Customer), then the Main OCPD would eventually trip.
So, in conclusion, if nothing tripped, it is (almost) safe to say the fault levels experienced with the Jewelry Fault and the Jumper Fault, were, in actuality, low intensity fault levels, due to one or several reasons.
These are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS faults in themselves!
They do not pack the punch of Medium and High level faults, but instead, leave fire and shock hazards lingering around!
Scott35
