Posted to News on 27th May 2009, 14:38
Lenze offers help with machinery safety standards
At the end of 2009 EN ISO 13849-1 replaces EN 954-1 for safety of machines [but see this more recent announcement confirming EN 954-1 extension confirmed as two years - Ed]. For machine builders the new standard means changes and an increased workload with regards to certification of their products. Lenze has reacted to these new regulations and is offering competent support. Furthermore, the company's functional safety products are already certified to the new standard, and information and product data is readily available to support customers.
A new Lenze publication Safety of machinery gives an overview of the change in standards and the resulting requirements for certification of machinery and systems (see the review on MachineBuilding.net). The certification process is described in six steps, with guidance on the common technical terms and abbreviations. Lenze says that drive-based safety offers simplification of machine control systems, which speeds the task of assessment.
Lenze has also provided libraries for SISTEMA (Safety Integrity Software Tool for the Evaluation of Machine Applications). This tool is provided free of charge by the BGIA in Germany, and can be used to determine the achieved performance level (PL) in a machine. Dialog boxes guide users through the process of creating their individual safety functions in a project and entering the safety-relevant parameters for the individual paths. The tool then calculates the PL. Lenze can provide user support for the SISTEMA tool in the form of a library containing all Lenze components that have already been certified to the latest standards. This not only saves time but also prevents errors arising due to incorrect data entry.
With EN ISO 13849-1 (as with the sector functional safety standard EN 62061, which is restricted to the area of electrical, electronic and programmable controllers) machine builders have to take into account failure probability calculations when determining safety. In future, machine builders will therefore have to deal with safety-related parameters in order to determine the safety of a machine by calculating its performance level. Examples of these parameters are MTTFd (Mean Time To dangerous Failure) and DC (Diagnostic Coverage). Lenze's functional safety products are already certified accordingly. This facilitates the approval of the entire machine with the chosen safety concept.
Follow the link for more information about safety engineering from Lenze.
