Inova gates safety standards explained

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Automatic Gate & Garage Door Safety Standards Explained

EN 12453:2001

Key Requirements:

• Define areas of crushing, shearing & draw in on gates.

• Stipulates a maximum of 400N of crushing force allowed before gate must start to reverse. Areas outside of this are allowed up to 1400N.

• States the force exerted on contact must begin to reduce within 750 milliseconds to below 150N.

• Requirement to reduce force & back off applies to both opening & closing operations of the gate system.

• Defines that a danger area is considered to exist when a gap between the gate and a stationary object reduces to 50cm or below.

• Lists accepted technologies for providing this protection as torque limitation in drive units, laser light curtain devices & PSPE equipment (safety edges).

• Requires selected force limitation technology to protect danger areas of gate fully up to a height of 2.5 meters on both sliding and swing gates.

• Requires that the gate must be equipped with an emergency release system (e.g. release key). Users must be trained in how to operate the system.

EN12445:2001

Key Requirements:

• Defines force testing requirement points on sliding and swing gates, please note that the area designated for testing on swing gates when opening only exists when a gate opens within 500mm of a wall, fence or other object in the gates travel.

• Test points are horizontally 500mm, 300mm, 50mm from stop post.

• Vertically 300mmm from top of gate, 50mm from bottom & halfway between these points

• Each test point is measured 3 times.

• The average value is then calculated from these results and submitted as a Pass or Fail.

• An EN12445 compliant force testing device must be used.

• As part of any ongoing maintenance contracts, a gate should be force tested annually, or when any changes to the safety devices are made (e.g. altering torque settings in control panel or replacing a drive unit).

EN12978:2003

Key Requirements:

• Defines required safety category for the electronic transmission system used to connect the safety devices to the automation control board.

• Stipulates the transmission system must employ monitoring against faults in the attached safety devices and use force guided relays to signify a fault.

• Stipulates that the system must be fail safe and ideally Category 3.

• Minimum device safety level is Category 2 utilising an external test signal

• A Category 2 transmission system employs a single force guided relay and circuit which is used to monitor the input from the attached safety device. In the event of a failure of the attached safety device the transmission systems relay will open signalling the gate control board. However a Category 2 transmission system does not have in-built monitoring of its own circuit or relay providing no resilience to a point of failure. Due to this design a Category 2 transmission system 'must' be externally tested by the gate control board before each gate movement to meet safety requirements.

EN1760-2:2001

Key Requirements: (If using safety edge devices)

• Defines level of sensitivity, performance characteristics, response time and percentage of sensitive surface area of safety edges used.

• Tests on the edge are carried out by a notified body.

• Certificates for the safety edge devices used must be made available upon request.

EN12604:2000 & EN 12605:2000

Key Requirements:

• Defines mechanical aspects and assembly of the physical gate itself.

• Design should eliminate gaps over 100mm in the following areas;

Hinge posts being the gap measured between the gate post and gate frame, this should be 100mm or under and not reduce down by anymore than 25mm when the gate operates.
Centre meeting points (swing gates).

Gap’s above and below the gate must also comply with the 100mm rule. To protect gaps that exceed this measurement the use of torque limitation, pressure sensitive edges or other “state of the art” techniques may be used.