Relation to UL
When it comes to UL-certified control cabinets, in addition to the considerations familiar from European regulations, several supplementary safety considerations are necessary! Through regular communication with UL and ongoing training for our employees, we stay up to date and can offer our customers the best solutions tailored to their individual requirements.
What is Safety Engineering?
Safety engineering aims to ensure and enhance the safety of electrical systems and similar installations. To this end, systems are analyzed to identify potential hazards and implement measures to improve safety.
Active and Passive Safety in Safety Engineering
In general, safety engineering distinguishes between active and passive safety. While active safety systems are designed to prevent accidents, passive safety systems only come into play in the event of a failure to protect the surrounding area from its effects. Their primary purpose is therefore to minimize damage. Examples of passive safety systems include airbags in the automotive industry and surge protection devices in control panel construction.
Safety Engineering and UL
UL’s core competency and corporate purpose is to enhance product safety across a wide range of goods. Consequently, safety engineering plays a central role within the organization. UL follows a hazard-based approach to safety engineering (HBSE). This concept integrates aspects of both functional and inherent safety.
Inherent and Functional Safety
Intrinsic safety means that a system poses no hazard even if it is operated incorrectly or experiences a failure. A control cabinet flooded with inert gas poses no risk of explosion even if a short circuit occurs inside it that produces sparks. Functional safety, on the other hand, refers to safety devices that ensure the technical safety of process plants. It is therefore a component of process control technology.
What level of safety does Safety Engineering aim to achieve?
Setting aside all theoretical considerations regarding safety engineering, one question usually stands out in practice: What level of safety should a manufacturer aim for in its products? In answering this question, legal requirements play a decisive role alongside the manufacturer’s own standards (or those of its customers). For safety engineering in control panel construction for the U.S., this means, in particular, compliance with the regulations set forth in the National Electrical Code (NEC) of the United States (e.g., explosion protection according to NEC 500).
Beyond the legal requirements
In addition to the need to comply with legal requirements, there is an obligation to adhere to specific UL standards, such as UL 508A for control cabinets in general-purpose environments or UL 1203 for control cabinets in potentially explosive atmospheres. However, since UL standards impose at least the same requirements as the law in all respects, safety engineering that takes UL standards into account also ensures compliance with all legal requirements.
The Future of Safety Engineering
Technological advancements will give rise to even more extensive systems in the future, which will make safety engineering even more complex. At the same time, technological progress also presents an enormous opportunity. One topic currently receiving particular attention in this context is smart materials. These materials can react autonomously to changes in their environment, which will open up entirely new possibilities for the self-activation of passive safety systems, as these will no longer need to be operated in a permanent (power-consuming) standby mode.
Zusammenfassung
Safety engineering refers to a branch of engineering that deals with the analysis of hazard sources and measures to eliminate or mitigate them. Preventing hazards from electric shock or the creation of ignition sources is one of the main reasons for the existence of UL standards in control cabinet construction.
