Safety Relays vs CAT 4; Comments on Safety, Redundancy, Risk

COMMENTS

In response to: Safety Relays vs CAT 4Federico Badillo commented:

To achive Cat 4, redundancy has to be applied to the outputs, double contactor (a model with linked contacts ) to stop the dangerous movement and monitoring of the contactors operation by the safety relay, about the inputs, using redundancy and oposite polarity at each channel to detect wiring faults.

In response to: Safety Relays vs CAT 4JSmith commented:

That is correct. The redundancy built into the device is what allows the device to be rated as CAT IV. What is truly interesting is when these devices are used in conjunction with a bus system such as profibus. I have built configurations with regular and safety IO sharing the same bus and still maintaining the CAT IV safety rating.

In response to: Safety Relays vs CAT 4BKelly commented:

The redundant channels are to ensure that the safety function is achieved on the failure of a single channel. This redundancy must be carried out to the actuators. i.e. if the goal is to shut down a motor then each channel must feed separate contactors and de-energizing either contactor removes power from the motor. The diagnostics should then be handled via auxiliary contacts on the actuators in conjunction with the (usually) normal closed monitoring contacts on the safety relay itself. In the configuration you describe a single failure in the channel connected to the actuator completely defeats the safety function and therefore would not meet category 4 requirements, regardless of the rating on the relay.