I work for a company that manufactures machines for the food packaging industry and we are looking to develop control panels that would satisfy Arc Flash/Live Contact prevention. To that point, the control box we are creating would be divided into two halves: AC and DC. There will be a barrier between them. The majority of the controls are 480VAC, 3 Ph, 30-60A.
Each section would have its own door, and the AC side is locked by a flange mounted disconnect lever. The idea was to be able to open the VDC side without having to turn off the power.

My question deals with penetrating the barrier to be able to pass ethernet cables and conductors for the 24VDC to go to the DC side. (There are VFDs in the VAC side that need to be connected to the PLC located in the VDC side.) The VDC Power supply is located in the VAC side.

At first, I thought a simple 1.5" hole (with an edge grommet) would be okay. Now I am second guessing myself with the energy that might be created by an arc flash, would it come through that hole while someone was in the VDC section. (The distance from the disconnect to the hole would be about 20" apart.)
Is this something I need to worry about, or should I use a separate cord grip for each cable that has to go between the AC/DC barrier?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

One question you could ask yourself is: "what is the likely-hood of an arc flash occurring in the 480V compartment, assuming no work is being performed concurrently?"

Mike