EN IEC Standards
IEC 61508
This is the “mother” of all Functional safety standards used in several industries worldwide. It was written in order to allow the use of Electronic components in safety critical systems.
In 1985, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) set up a Task Group to assess the viability of developing a generic standard for programmable electronic systems to be used for safety applications. A working group had previously been set up to deal with safety-related software. These two working groups collaborated on the development of an international standard that became the IEC 61508 series,
IEC 61511
IEC 61511 (all parts) is intended as the process industry sector implementation of IEC 61508; it addresses the application of SISs (Safety Instrumented System) in the process industry.
Safety Instrumented Functions (SIF) are protective functions implemented in a Safety Instrumented System (SIS). A typical SIS is comprised of multiple SIFs; typically, each SIF has process sensors that measure a process deviation, a logic solver that executes the functional logic, and final control elements (e.g. valves) that bring the process to a safe state. The IEC 61511 series of standards addresses SIS ba
IEC TS 63394
IEC TS 63394 is not an International Standard like IEC 62061 or ISO 13849-1 but a Technical Specification.
IEC TS 63394:2023 - Safety of machinery - Guidelines on functional safety of safety-related control system
It was published, as a first edition, in February 2023.
In the context of Machinery Safety, the sector standard IEC 62061 as well as ISO 13849-1 provide requirements to manufacturers of machines for the design, development and integration of safety-related control systems (SCS) or safety-related parts of control systems (SRP/CS), depending on the technology used (mechanical, pne
EN IEC 61439-2
The purpose of the standard EN IEC 61439-2 (low-voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies) is to harmonize as far as practicable all rules and requirements of a general nature applicable to low-voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies (focus on power center) in order to obtain uniformity of requirements and verification for assemblies and to avoid the need for verification to other standards.
EN IEC 61439-1 includes all prescriptions which could be considered common.
For each type of assembly that falls on this series of Standard, only two main standards are necessary:
- EN
EN 62046
The EN IEC 62046, published in July 2018, replaces the CLC/TS 62046:2008.
This Standard specifies requirements for the selection, positioning, configuration and commisioning of the protective equipment to detect the momentary or continued presence of persons in order to protect those persons from dangerous parts of the machinery in industrial applications.
IEC 60204-1
IEC released the new Standard EN 60204-1 on 13th October 2016. It gives prescriptions for the electrical equipment of machines. Its previous version dates back to 2005. The standard is a reference document, dealing with Electrical Safety, for Machinery Manufacturers.
In February 2020, the first meeting to update the IEC standard was held in Frankfurt. The main objective of the meeting was the drafting of an Amendment to align IEC 60204-1 with EN 60204-1 of 2018.
The Amendment was published in September 2021. We did not succeed in aligning the IEC to the EN version completely, unfortunately.
IEC 62061
IEC 62061 is one of the two Functional Safety Standard for machineries, the other being ISO 13849-1. On 22 March 2021, after 16 years from the first edition, a new one was published!
IEC 62061: Safety of machinery - Functional safety of safety-related control systems.
On 7 April 2022, it was published in the Official Journal of the European Union and officially became a harmonised standard to the Machinery Directive. The old IEC 62061:2005 edition will remain in force until 11 October 2023.
The standard is derived from IEC 61508 and it is addressed to the machinery sector: it allows the
IEC 60364-4-41
The standard defines the methods to be used to protect people against electric shock. The Latest edition (5.1) is dated March 2017. The new requirements will be included in the Italian CEI 64-8 in 2021.
The standard has the status of a Group Safety Publication (IEC Guide 104); that means it is primarily intended to be used by other Technical Committees while writing their specific Product Safety Standards. That also means it is not a product safety Standard and it cannot be applied as it is to a specific electrical installation. That is the main difference with NFPA 70 or the CE Code. Those
