Understanding Safety Functions: the Safety-related stop function

A stop sign - A red octagon with a white border, and white block text reading STOP.

The most used safety function on machinery is the safety-related stop function. The requirements discussed in this post are not generally applicable to process-related stop functions unless the process and safety stop functions share the same control system hardware and software.

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More E-Stop Questions

An emergency stop button on an industrial control console is shown in the foreground, with the rest of the controls devices shown in soft focus behind it.

Here are some more questions I’ve been asked regarding emergency stop requirements. These ones came to me through the IEEE PSES EMC-PSTC Product Compliance Forum mailing list. Primary Sources There are three primary sources for the requirements for emergency stop devices: [1] Safety of machinery — Emergency stop — Principles for design, ISO 13850. International…

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Emergency Stop Pull-Cords

When it comes to emergency stop devices, there is no doubt that the red mushroom-head push button is the most common – they seem to be everywhere. The second most common emergency stop device is the pull-cord, and like the light-curtain in safeguarding devices, the pull-cord is probably the most misapplied emergency stop device. Local…

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Emergency Stop Failures

I always look for interesting examples of machinery safety problems to share on MS101. Recently I was scrolling Reddit/r/OSHA and found some real-world examples of emergency stop failures, plus one from my own experience.

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ISO 13849-1 Analysis — Part 6: CCF — Common Cause Failures

Post updated 2019-07-24. Ed. What is a “Common Cause Failure”? There are two similar-sounding terms that people often get confused: Common Cause Failure (CCF) and Common Mode Failure. While these two types of failures sound similar, they are different. A Common Cause Failure is a failure in a system where two or more portions of the…

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