MACHINE SAFETY
The topic for the discussion is Machine safety. This chapter welcomes me to the world of
industry with all the industrial technical terms like safety standards,safety laws, risk
assessment,hazard , hazard zone , common cause failure, random failure, systematic failure ,
control category and a lot more.
The first priority in any industry which involves human and Machine is the safety. Machine
handling requires knowledge before usage.
Why Machine safety?
Machine can serious cause damage to the workers. They can cause injuries, burns , scalds or
electrical shock. Worst case scenario, they can dissect body parts or kill.
What is safety?
The state at which risk prevails in an acceptable range or no unacceptable residual risk is called
risk. If risk happens to be greater than the acceptance , measures should be taken to reduce the
risk to accepted level ( according to standards or set by the authority )
Safety standards and laws are created to ensure safety in the workplace, product , activity or
process.
Three tier structure of the safety standards
Type A
They are fundamental standards that can be applied for all machinery. They provide basic
concept , principles of design and general aspects
Type B
Type B is further classified as two subclasses
Type B1
Type B1 mentions specific safety aspects like safety distance, safety temperature and safety
noise level
Type B2
Type B2 talks about standards of the safety related devices or components like pressure
sensitive device and two hand controls
Type C
Type C are the detailed standards applicable for specific machine or a group of machine.
Some standards
ANSI(American National Standards Institutions), IEC(International Electrotechnical
Commission) , ISO(International Organization for Standardization).
ISO13849-1,IEC 62061and EN954-1 are the some of the fundamental safety standards for
design.
EC declaration of conformity
Sometimes a manufacturer or respective authority can ensure safety. EC declaration of
conformity is an official authority to ensure compliance of product with all relevant requirements
of the European safety directives. It indicates the compliance of the product to all the
requirements of European product legislation.
It contains
● Name/address of the manufacturer
● Description of the product and model number
● List of standards used
● Name and position of authorised person etc…
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment is the process where hazards and risk factors are identified these risk factors
can cause harm.
It conform safety of workers and reduce the possibility of harm.
It indicates
● Incorrect usage as operation mistake
● Identify hazards in machine
● Estimate degree of risk and frequency of situations in which risk is present
Steps of risk assessment
Risk assessment can be calculated by defining limits of the machine,hazard identification, risk
estimation and risk evaluation.
● Limits of a machine
Limits of a machine are
1. Usage limit - operation mode
2. Space limit - space availability and movement range
3. Time limit - working hours and time constraints
4. Further limits - material condition and environment condition
● Identification of hazard
Hazard identification is important for analayse and conclude the type of risk and finding a
way to recover.
Hazards can be due to electrical, thermal , noise , vibration and radiation.
Hazard zones are any area in, at or around a machine in which a person is exposed to
the risk.
● Risk evaluation
Risk evaluation can be done by calculating risk or Hazard Rating Number
Risk is the product of harm and the probability of occurance of the harm. R = P*H.
Hazard Rating Number (HRN) is the product of
1. FE- frequency of person being exposed to hazard
2. MPL- Maximum Possible Damage
3. PE- probability of a hazard event
4. NP- Number of persons exposed to risk.
● Risk evaluation / risk reduction process
Assigning a person to find a solution based on the data. creating a safety design and
use of safeguards.
Classification of safety
1. Direct safety
Prevention of danger - they follow safe-life approach
2. Indirect safety
prevention against device
3. Indicaive safety
Protection against device. Indicate safety environment (via signs)
Safety functions
● Required Performance Level (PLr)
It is the required mandatory performance level of a machine to reduce risk
PLr is calculated into a,b,c,d and e from lowrisk to high risk (respectively) based on
parameters listed below
1. S- severity of injury
2. F- Frequency and Duration of hazard
3. P- possibility of avoiding the hazard
● Performance Level(PL)
It is the ability of safety related parts of control systems to perform a safety function.
Parameters to estimate PL
1. Architecture of control system
2. MTTFd - Mean Time to Dangerous Failure is the time over which probability of
failure is constant.
3. B10d value for electrochemical devices with wear and tear.
4. Diagnostic coverage
It is the measure of effectiveness of diagnostic implemented in the system
5. Common cause failure
It is the failure where two or more portions of the system fail at the same time
from a single common cause eg:- lightning.
Control categories
Control categories are classified as
1. Control category B
2. Control category 1
3. Control category 2
4. Control category 3
5. Control category 4
each suitable for unique control system model. They are designed to control the flow of process
when fault occurs.
