Progressive technical development leads to faster and more complex systems and often, conventional safety solutions are no longer sufficient. Here, Phoenix Contact highlights some of its services that are available
Safety doesn’t have to be complex. Phoenix Contact helps its customers to overcome difficult applications with a portfolio of products and solutions that are easy to integrate into existing networks, easy to operate throughout the life cycle of the system and easy to adapt to suit changing application requirements.
SafetyBridge technology
The safety system from Phoenix Contact with SafetyBridge technology operates independently of safety bus systems such as Interbus Safety and Profisafe and does not require a safety control in the network. The safety logic operations are directly processed in the intelligent safety output module. The safety modules can be operated at any location, distributed in the particular network, in an I/O station of the inline automation system.
With the configuration options, the eight input or eight output channels can be flexibly adapted to the particular application. Data transfer via the network from the safety input module to the output module is secured using a special protocol, which is driven from the intelligent output module.
The standard control only has to copy non-safety I/O data bi-directionally between the input and output modules. As a consequence, the control does not handle any safety oriented tasks.
Configuring the safety input and output channels and generating the safety logic is realised in a user friendly fashion with the Safeconf software and does not require any programming experience. Pre-configured function blocks are available for almost any application.
Configurable Safety Modules
Phoenix Contact’s safe, expandable PSR-Trisafe-M Configurable Safety Module monitors all safety functions in machines and plants. Just 67.5mm wide, this device can be used to evaluate up to 20 safety input signals. Furthermore, it provides four intrinsically safe outputs as well as clock cycle, signalling and ground switching outputs. The master device can be simply and flexibly expanded using safety I/O modules.
For fast generation of safety logic, drag and drop functionality is provided by the free of charge Safeconf configuration software. And, as no programming skills are required, new protective devices can be quickly and easily integrated into the system at any time.
The integrated simulation mode and automatic logic check function assist users during the design phase. The modules (configured with just a few mouse clicks), reduce wiring costs and at the same time, minimise potential of errors.
Functional Safety App
The new Safety App, developed by certified safety experts with Phoenix Contact, has been available free of charge from the iTunes Store since April 2011 – under the ‘Safety Services’ search term.
As the first App on this subject, it is a helpful tool for machinery construction OEMs and users of the Machinery Directive (MRL), as well as DIN EN ISO 13849-1. With this App, users interactively learn about the individual topics and gain an understanding of the various interrelationships. In addition to the latest information from the world of functional safety, this app provides the following functions:
To evaluate the machine, a checklist is used to determine whether the most important requirements of the Machinery Directive are complied with. As a consequence, uncertainties can be identified. An overview of the criteria to be fulfilled and the open points can be used as PDFs for ongoing processing.
As an example, the required Performance Level is determined based on the risk graphs for safety functions according to DIN EN ISO 13849-1.
As an example, the MTTFd value is determined – which is the time up to hazardous failure of the safety parts of a control according to DIN EN 133849-1.
