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Explanation of Dust Standards EN 61241 Series

Background Information EN 50281-1-1:1998 was previously the only standard available for ATEX certification of equipment for use in the presence of combustible dust. This standard relies almost entirely on protection of equipment by an enclosure which must be either dust tight (IP6x) for category 1 and 2 or dust protected (IP5x) for category 3. This meant that even if equipment was intrinsically safe and unable to produce a spark or sufficiently high temperatures to ignite a dust it still had to be contained within a suitable rated enclosure. Current Standards There now exists a set of standards, the EN 61241 series, listed in the right hand column which offer a more flexible approach to dust certification. The format of the standards closely follows the EN 60079 series of standards, electrical apparatus for gas atmospheres, with many concepts now common to both gas and dust. EN 61241-1 is the exception. This, together with EN61241-0, is the replacement for the previous standard, EN 50281-1-1, relying mainly on the ingress protection of the enclosure to protect the equipment. A separate data sheet has been produced to highlight the technical differences between EN 50281-1-1 and this standard. The remaining standards, parts 2, 11, and 18 are similar to their gas equivalents meaning it is now simpler to do combined gas and dust certification for pressurised, intrinsically safe and encapsulated equipment. Future Developments Work is already underway to combine the gas and dust standards. The next editions of EN 60079-0, EN 60079-2, EN 60079-11 and EN 60079-18 will include both gas and dust requirements. Baseefas presence on these standards committees means that we are able to advise you in advance of technical changes which affect your product enabling you to make any design changes in advance of the standards publication.

EN 61241-0:2006
General requirements

EN 61241-1:2004
Protection by enclosure tD

EN 61241-4:2006
Protection by pressurisation pD

EN 61241-11:2006
Intrinsically safe apparatus iD

EN 61241-18:2004
Protection by encapsulation mD

Pub DS28 Iss1 11/08

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