Standards Work

Driven mainly by the European single market, and the ATEX directive, the last 15 years has seen a tremendous effort to produce harmonised standards for equipment such as flame arrestors, explosion vent panels, mechanical equipment for use in potentially explosive atmospheres, together with standards for test methods for the hazardous properties of gases, vapours and dusts. It is always worrying how few manufacturers take an active part in this process.

Alan has been a member of the renumbered BSI committee EXL/23 (Explosion and Fire Precautions in Industrial and Chemical Plant) which covers all these topics since 1996, and has been chair of the committee since Aug 2007.

Alan has also worked at different times on the CENELEC subcommittees which were responsible for the standards for hazardous area classification, for both liquids and gases, and for dusts.

He has also been active at the European level, in Working Group 2 of CEN TC 305. This working group is responsible for writing the standards for mechanical equipment subject to ATEX. Following the untimely death of Dr Richard Rogers, Alan became Working Group convenor during 2008. The working group is responsible for the various parts of EN 13463, which describe various ways of constructing mechanical equipment to meet the different ATEX categories.

To read more about the work of EXL/23 click here

To see the work programme of TC 305 click here

Protecting vehicles from creating ignition risks is not simple, and the standard for ATEX fork lift trucks, EN 1755 has been criticised and is currently under revision. However, the latest draft revised version, which does not adopt all the details of existing electrical standards is also controversial.

Perhaps this is the solution.

Almost all the work of TC305 is now being offered up to the international level, and the output will eventually appear as ISO/IEC dual badged standards. This work is being handled in Subcommittee SC31M of IEC Technical Committee TC31, which started the process in November 2007. The first work items for transfer to the International level are those on mining equipment, and quality systems for ATEX equipment. The 2008 meeting of IEC TC31 agreed to start work on transfer of EN standards on non-electrical ATEX equipment ( i.e. EN 13463) to the international level. That process is being progressed with the intention of creating 2 standards from 4 European standards, to become eventually IEC/ISO 80079-36 and IEC/ISO 80079-37. The first standard will be an international version of EN 13463-1 covering basic requirements for Ex mechanical equipment, and a second team will draw together some of the other parts of EN 13463 to describe equipment with a higher level of protection. Committee drafts of 80079-36 and 80079-37 are currently out for public comment.

Standards which are formally recognised by the European commission as providing a way of meeting all the essential safety requirements are published in the Official Journal of the EU and the ones relevant to ATEX are listed again here