White paper on functional safety

The White Paper examines current European Directives and Standards and how they are applied to modern machinery designs. It particularly looks at how to design-in safety and design-out risk, establishing the limits and intended use of the machinery, identifying hazards, and estimating the risk for each hazard identified.  

Different industrial applications and sectors are considered, with examples of Functional Safety within packaging/conveying, bottling, and the timber trade. It also looks at Functional Safety in the design of elevators and moving walkways, as well as Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs).

The importance of using certified products to a specific Safety Integrity Level (SIL) is explored, and how using products that are certified by a recognised certification body makes it easier for engineers to calculate and accurately claim a safety rating for a system overall, as well as providing important data such as a Mean Time to Failure.

This new Sensata white paper is available as a free download at: www2.sensata.com/functional-safety-encoders