8

1NTERNATIONAL ("WORLD CLASS") CEwIlFlCATlON FOR HAZARDOUS AREA ELECTRlCAL EQUIPMENT

The "IECEx" Scheme

A

M Owler

Expo Safety Systems Ltd. UK

ABSTRACT The paper outlines the IECEx scheme currently being prepared for voting within the membership of the IECEE with the objective of establishing a "World Class" Certification scheme for electrical equipment intended to be used in Hazardous Areas. Harmonised standards are the starting point with IEC appointed Testing Houses issuing IEC "Certificates of Conformity" which would be valid worldwide without further testing or certification. The proposals are based on the existing scheme within Europe and the risks and benefits are discussed both from the manufacturer's and user's point of view. IEC and International Standards In Spring 1992 the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) invited member countries to send "Experts" to the first meeting of a new working group to try to agree the principles of an International Certification Scheme for electrical equipment used in Hazardous Areas e.g. Flameproof Enclosure, Pressurized Enclosure or Intrinsically Safe. The meeting took place in Toronto and countries who sent delegates included UK, USA, Canada, Japan, Italy and Sweden, with interest also shown by Australia, France, India and South Africa. The role of the IEC is to produce internationally acceptable standards by highly democratic means and to persuade member countries to use them as their national standards. Sometimes existing national standards are accepted and become international "standards" a good example of which is the "19inch rack" which has become the universal way of packaging modular electronic equipment. Even in the metric IEC standard (IEC297) it is stated that the standard is based on the "19inch rack"! IEC standards have English and French texts side by side and are also available in Russian. The existing IEC "CB" Scheme There has been a certification scheme for domestic electrical equipment within the IEC for four decades, the WCBM scheme, which has had varying degrees of success. In. principle the manufacturer obtains a test report from a participating test hduse and then takes that report to his own national certifying body to obtain a certificate of conformity for his country. If he wishes to export his product he can also take the same test report to each country where he wishes to export and gain a certificate for that country as well. The benefit of the scheme is that the second test house does not have to repeat the testing and the new certificate can be issued right away. Each test house has its own "Mark" or logo and the manufacturer is then licensed to use that mark on his product. There are several precondit'ions for the scheme : - the countries have to appoint participating test houses; - the national standards have to be mutually aligned so that the original testing can be done to the same standard with the same pass/fail criteria ; - the manufacturer has to decide, at the design stage, which export markets he wishes to cover so that the testing can accommodate any minor variations in the national standards from the beginning. The difficulties with the scheme centre around the need to obtain certification in every country where exporting is to be attempted and the multiplicity of

Electrical Safety in Hazardous Environments, 19-21 April 1994, Conference Publication No. 390, @ IEE, 1994

resulting certificates and marks. Examination of some of the products so certified e.g. a European mains operated electric razor, reveals that the product is barely large enough to carry all the marks! Another problem is that small national differences in the standards are permitted to suit national tastes and the test report must test to all the differences otherwise some subsequent re-testing may be necessary. The European Scheme The European Community's "Explosive Atmospheres Directives" have been in operation since 1979 and have generally been very successful. The Directives specify particular CENELEC standards and define the certification procedure. Standards A condition of membership of CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation) is that, once a standard is agreed by the responsible CENELEC technical committee, each member country will publish it as their National Standard. Conflicting older standards must be withdrawn within a time limit and no changes at all are permitted. The new standard will be published initially in English, French and German but may be translated into other languages by the member countries, e.g. Norwegian and Spanish, and published only after the translation has been approved by CENELEC. By this means every member country will have identical standards and each reader can read the standard in his own language. Considerable care is taken to ensure that the translations are identical in meaning, a task which is sometimes quite difficult. But, with only a few exceptions, CENELEC has been successful in achieving harmonisation of many technical requirements, including standards for most types of Hazardous Area protection methods. As the basis for its standards CENELEC always takes the IEC equivalent standards where such exists. If the IEC document is suitable there is great pressure to adopt it, without change,

as the CENELEC standard. The present editions of the CENELEC standards (issued in the late 7 0 ' s ) are, in many cases, identical to the IEC equivalent standards of the time. Some IEC documents cannot automatically be used, for example, because they were written as "Reports" or "Codes of Practice" in non-mandatory language. CENELEC standards in general have to be written so that a Test House or Certifying Authority can use them to issue test reports and certificates. This implies that any flexibilities are specified in the standard and all test reports are therefore based on identical requirements. This can lead to considerable extra work and the CENELEC committee on Pressurization needed ten three-day meetings over a period of eight years to turn the IEC Report 79-2 into a standard suitable for certification purposes. This has now resulted in a voting document which, is hoped, will be accepted during 1994. At this stage a l l member countries are invited to vote on the document with the larger countries having more votes than the smaller countries. All countries may vote whether or not they participated in the work. If the vote is positive, whether or not they individually voted in favour of the draft, all member countries will have to publish the final standard as their national standard. It can be seen that national delegations will pursue their national preferences very strongly in committee as failure to convince the committee of their point of view will eventually force them to change their national practices to a view they did not like! The system however is highly democratic and generally works very well. Certification Under the Explosive Atmospheres Directive, each member country of the EC notifies the European Commission of the certification bodies that they have approved. The Certification bodies carry out examination and testing of products in accordance with the specified standards. Upon completion of examination of the product, successfui testing, and satisfactory surveillance of the manufacturer of the product, a European Certificate of Conformity is

10

issued. A manufacturer who possesses a Certificate of Conformity may place on the certified product the community hazardous area "Mark" (an "Ex" in a hexagon [ Z ] ) . This mark has become recognised as the "passport" of the apparatus and is vital -to allow acceptance and use of .the product everywhere in the community. Acceptance and marketability of hazardous area products With the standards and certification methods harmonised there should be confidence among the governments that products from another member country should be as safe as those manufactured under the national jurisdiction. The European parliament adopted legislation (a "Directive") requiring that member countries should permit apparatus bearing the Mark to enter their country and be used without technical objection to the foreign certification. Over the years the Mark has proved its worth and users are no longer permitted to specify a particular test house. (They get around the rule by stating, for example, "Certified by BASEEFA or equivalent authorised test house"). The manufacturer is not required to use his own national test house and is permitted to shop around for the best/quickest/cheapest certification available. This is resulting in competition between test houses and a general raising of standards of customer service. No bad thing from the manufacturer's o r the user's point of view!
IIExII International The IEC Certification Scheme At the first meeting in March ' 9 2 the "Experts" from interested countries decided to try to set up an International Certification Scheme for Hazardous area electrical equipment. Unlike the "CB" Scheme discussed above it was decided that it should be centred on the following concepts:

go to the IEC authorised test house of his choice and obtain an IEC International Certificate of Conformity to the IEC standard for his product which would be valid and acceptable in all participating IEC member countries. There will be an "IEC Ex Mark" which will become recognised as the equipment's Internaticlnal passport.

If this sounds similar to the European system it will come as no surprise to learn that it was proposed by the UK! It was strongly supported by the meeting and a "task force'' was set up to write the rules. The task force comprised test houses from the UK, USA, Japan and Sweden together with a manufacturer and a user, with technical support from IECEE (the department within IEC dealing with certification matters). .It was led by the Director of the UK's principle test house EECS (BASEEFAIMECS)'. If this sounds ''Utopian" (and equally difficult to get to) the reader could be forgiven, except for the fact that the Europeans have been operating such a scheme for over ten years! This is not to say that it will be easy to achieve and there are many hurdles to overcome. The task force leader produced a pictorial representation of "The Road to World Certification" [ 4 ] . You will notice that the hurdles are in fact shown as brick walls which are normally regarded as impregnable. The merit of a brick wall however is that it can be lowered o r taken down entirely, brick by brick, by starting at the top. This would seem to be the best way forward, tackling the problems brick by brick! The reader will also notice that the wall labelled "National Differences from IEC Standards" has one section which is lower than the others. This is intended to represent the technique of Intrinsic Safety where the IEC Standards have been widely accepted and adopted, with only minor variations, as national standards. An example tabled at the meeting was of a Zener Diode Safety Barrier which has certificates valid in thirty-seven countries [51, the identical product being sold in all thirty-seven markets! Harmonisation of

One One One One

Standard (The IEC standard!) Test Report Certificate Mark

The agreed objective was to set up the scheme so that the manufacturer might

11

the hazardous area standards of participating countries is essential; it seems that Intrinsic Safety would be a good place to start. The IEC authorised Test Houses will have to be appointed and -supervised with great care and it seems likely that the IS0 (International Standards Organisation) versions of the EN45 000 series of Test House quality standards will be used to assess the applicant test houses. Similarly, the manufacturers are likely to need their manufacturing quality systems independently accredited to at least the IS0 9002 Quality Standard to ensure the confidence of the customer that the product he buys conforms to the prototype that was tested and certified by the test house. Test Houses will be required to perform surveillance on the certified manufacturer with procedures to be followed if it is found that manufactured products do not conform to the certificate. An important element from the manufacturers viewpoint is that it is vital that the acceptance of the certificate be reciprocal i.e. a certificate produced in country A should be accepted in Country B while country Bs certificates must be equally acceptable in Country A . Only in this way will fair competition be possible. Herein lies a major hurdle for the scheme as the acceptability, or otherwise, of the certificate is not the decision of IEC but that of the government of the member country. Manufacturers and users will have to persuade their governments to join the scheme. A t the start of the scheme there is likely to be a transition period where participating countries will be able to align their national standards with the IEC standards and then enact legislation to permit acceptance by their regulatory authorities of an IEC International Certificate of Conformity. The issuing of IEC Certificates of Conformity could begin as soon as the rules are agreed and Test Houses appointed. IEC certificates may well be accepted by the many countries that do not have already have strong preferences or test houses o f their own.

There may be disadvantages seen by the manufacturers e.g. the risk involved in opening their market to foreign competitors. They should bear in mind that, while it is difficult to change the mind of government, it is even harder to change the hearts and minds of the buyers who trust their local test house and who may well-resist the importer with his foreign certificate. Experience in Europe has shown that language difficulties are still a major problem and familiarity with the local supplier is a very difficult customer objection for the foreign supplier to overcome. The good news is that the manufacturer in a participating country has a much wider opportunity to sell his products world wide. The OEM customer could stop making different products for different markets and having to obtain multiple certifications at enormous expense. spent on Reduced resources certification can be redeployed on more profitable development work and better products could be produced for the wider market. The user will have a much wider choice of product and can chose the technology which suits his process best. Ultimately it is the user of the product that stands to gain most, with manufacturers offering products which will tend to look more and more alike and even become interchangeable. The pattern can be seen within the pneumatic industry where, under the influence of the powerful automotive industry, committees like JIC [ 6 1 and CETOP [7] have harmonised pneumatic valves and cylinders to the point where they are sometimes indistinguishable from one another except for the paint colour! Types of protection to be included in the scheme Whether or not a type of protection can be included depends upon the status of the IEC Standard and the alignment of the local national standard. The current status of the IEC Hazardous area standards (the IEC 79 series) is:

12

Presently acceptable for certification: 79-0 General requirements for all types of protection 7 9 - 1 Flameproof (or "Explosionproof" in North America) 79-5 Powder Filling 79-6 Oil Immersion 79-7 Increased Safety 79-11 Intrinsic Safety IEC "Reports" to be converted to standards: 79-2 Pressurization (Enclosures without people) 79-13 Pressurized Rooms (Without an internal flammable gas release) 79-15 Type n (Non-Incendive equipment for Zone 2 use) 79-16 Analyser Houses (Flammable gas diluted with air) In preparation: ( ? = Number to be decided) 79-? Encapsulation 7 9 - ? Gas Detectors 79-? Dust Hazards Several of the above standards are currently in the process of review and it is hoped that the new editions will be available for incorporation from the beginning of the scheme. Progress to date After four meetings the task force produced a draft that was subsequently accepted, after some amendments, by the full Working Group. The document was presented to the annual meeting of the IECEE Management Committee in November ' 9 3 where it was accepted without change. The "IECEx" scheme is now to voted on by member countries and could be in operation in January ' 9 5 . A summary of the voting document is to be found as Reference [ 3 ] . For those familiar with the normal speed of progress within IEC the realisation that the whole operation took only nineteen months from inception to acceptance for voting may indicate the level of enthusiasm for the concept and the hard work put in by the task force members ! Conclusion The advent of a truly international certification scheme will be uelcomed

by many users of hazardous area equipment. Multi-national oil and chemical companies will not need to redesign their new plants according to the rules of the host country. They will tend to be located in countries who have joined the scheme and harmonised their own standards with IEC. Operators of offshore drilling rigs will no longer have the problem of trying to satisfy two different sets rules imposed, for example, by the U.S. Coastguard (to USA standards) and the Dutch Mining Inspection (to CENELEC standards). Manufacturers can concentrate on improving the product and not trying to design it to meet ten different standards all basically similar but with irritating and differing details. Example: In Europe a CENELEC pressurized enclosure must have its internal air changed at least five times before power can be switched on. In the USA it is either four or ten times depending upon the contents of the enclosure, while in Australia it is either three or five times depending upon which standard is used. In both the USA and Australia efforts are being made to bring the national pressurization standards into line with IEC (five air changes) but at the same time CENELEC is about to vote on the second edition of EN50 016 which turns the IEC "Report" into a standard suitable for certification while stressing the need for a purge test which may result in less than five air changes ! Greater co-operation between IEC and CENELEC i s already happening and the new CENELEC standards for Sand Filling and Oil Immersion have already been proposed to IEC as draft IEC standards. The new CENELEC "General Requirements" document EN50 014 i s proposed by IEC as the next issue of IEC 79-0 [SI Utopia here r;e come!

The author, Andy Owler, is Managing Director of Expo Safety Systems Ltd. who specialise in the manufacture of Pressurized and Purged enclosures, Flameproof (Explosionproof) boxes and Intrinsically Safe Information Technology products such as data terminals and barcode readers. He is Chairman of IEC SC31D and CENELEC SC31-7 (the International and European Pressurization technical committees) and represents Group I1 (non-mining on the industry) manufacturers management board of BASEEFA, the main UK Test House for hazardous area equipment. He is the UK manufacturing member of the "IECEE Ex" working group. Expo Safety Systems Ltd., Summer Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey, England, KT7 ORH Tel: Intt44 81 398 8011, Tlx: 8954824 xposys g, Fax: int+44 81 398 8014 References [ l ] Authorised European

[ 2 ] The European Certification "Mark"

(x)
Summary of the voting document which will set up the IECEx scheme IECEE reference:- IECEE/MC (Sec)* BSI reference:-94/* BSI Committee responsible to whom representations should be made is "L6"
[31

(EEC) Test

Houses
UK France Germany Belgium Italy Denmark Spain Netherlands EECS (BASEEFA/MECS) & ST&C LCIE and INERIS (CERCHAR) PTB and DMT (BVS) ISSeP (INIEX) CESI DEMKO LOM TNO

TO be given at the conference when the voting draft has been finalised (currently with the task force for finalisation).

Some non-EEC European Test houses They are not presently authorised by the European Commission to apply the "Zx" mark but likely to become so after becoming members of the EEC. Norway NEMKO Sweden SEK(SP) Switzerland SEV continued

......

The Road to World Certification [4] (A graphic, semi-serious, portrayal of the way to certification Utopia)

GAINING AGREEMENT

[51 MTL700 series certification list

Zener

Barrier

The device tabled at the IECEE WG Ex meeting in 1992 that demonstrated very effectively the existing harmony within the Intrinsic Safety standards was an MTL700 series Zener Diode Safety Barrier. It is approximately 125" long wide. It is x 75" high and 14" covered in certification labels and is not large enough, comfortably, to contain all the data! It is certified to the local national standards as f01lows : Aus tra 1ia SA Canada CSA Czechoslovakia FTZU (Current status of FTZU is unclear) Denmark DEMKO Hungary BKI Japan RIIS Poland KDB ISM Rumania Switzerland SEV UK BASEEFA UL and FM USA CIS (USSR) VNIIVE 12 countries The UK (BASEEFA) certificate is valid in all the EEC and EFTA countries including: Belgium EEC Denmark France Germany Greece Holland Ireland Italy Luxembourg Spain 9 countries (excl Denmark & UK) Austria E FTA Finland Iceland Norway Portuga1 Sweden Switzerland 6 countries (excl Switzerland) Total: 37 countries

I n addition there are many other countries accepting (officially o r unofficially) certification to IEC or CENELEC standards including: Abu Dhabi and the other Emirates China Egypt India Israel Ma laysia New Zealand Saudi Arabia Singapore South Africa Thailand Turkey

[6] JIC: Joint Industries Committee of the automotive industry [7] CETOP: The European committee for hydraulics4 and pneumatics [8] IEC TC31 meeting 'in Brisbane, 1991