Everyone has seen how digital technology has been changing our lives and, with the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is the central focus in the industrial sector. Digitalization has created the basis for fieldbuses, diagnostics and functional safety, now essential conditions to engineer smarter and safer Industry 4.0 machines.
Functional safety is the ability to detect a potentially dangerous condition and activate a protective mechanism to prevent raising hazardous events. The Machine Directive 2006/42/EC with relevant harmonized standards IEC 61508 Safety Integrity Level (SIL) and ISO 13849 Performance Level (PL) define the general principles concerning machine safety which manufacturers must consider in order to limit risks related to machine operation.
Consequently, hydraulic systems designers need to extend their competence and responsibility in dealing with safety regulations related to the risk prevention for workers and equipment in case of system fault or human error. They are also investing energies and time in components validation and the relative overall system certification process.
Certified safety valves eliminate the need for machine manufacturers to validate such components in compliance with the applicable safety standards. A considerable amount of time is saved during the machine design, resulting in a simplification of the system certification process.
The standard solution foresees the use of on-off valves or cartridges with inductive safety sensors to monitor the spool or poppet position, information which the machine central unit collects in order to confirm the safe status of the valve.
