31 THE door industry journal summer 2022 Also online at: www.dijonline.co.uk Industry News 2003 – The standards were harmonised with the Machinery Directive (MD) EN 13241 was published in the UK and across the EU. It formalised the relationship between the Machinery Directive and standards; it was ‘harmonised’. This meant that industrial and garage door manufacturers could assume that if their product conformed to EN 13241, they could also assume that it conformed to the UK Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations and the EU Machinery Directive. EN 13241 did not create any new requirements in terms of fall-back protection or moving safety, it simply referred to the existing EN 12604 and EN 12453 for these areas of compliance. This did however formalise the machinery safety legislation state-of-the-art; it was no longer implied. Using the standard was not mandatory, but achieving an equal or better level of safety was mandatory. 2013 – The standards were harmonised with the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) EN 13241 became ‘harmonised’ with the new Construction Products Regulation. This did not alter anything in terms of fall-back protection or moving parts safety, but it did alter the way that manufacturers had to test their products for compliance with the now mandatory CPR. Before this, there had been a predecessor to the CPR, the Construction Products Directive (CPD), but unlike in much of Europe, it was not compulsory to apply the CE marking in the UK. From 2013 onwards, manufacturers in the UK and across the EU had to comply with the new CPR. This meant using the services of a notified test laboratory for testing. Test labs are ‘notified’ by UK Government on approval from UKAS; similar national systems exist in EU countries. Assessment of existing doors of all ages Various components play a part in holding a vertically acting door open: • Non-wearing components such as barrels, shafts, guide tracks, mounting plates and fixings etc, are simply required to be engineered and proportioned such that they will not fail, • wearing components like springs, cables, drive chains, drive gears and gearboxes must be protected such that when they do suffer a failure, the door will not guillotine shut and will be prevented from further use until the failed component can be replaced. The required performance for protection is that when a wearing component fails, the door must either have a static weight of less than 20kg or it must be prevented from dropping more than 300mm and be prevented from further use. Protection can be in the form of devices or an inherently safe system that can self-detect failures and prevent further use. Assessing the safety of a particular door or shutter is not always straightforward. Whilst an unbalanced shutter that weighs more than 20kg clearly needs a safety brake or an internally protected direct drive, other doors and shutters are more complicated to assess. Section 2.2.4 of dhf TS 013-1:2021 (Industrial Doors) provides assessment guidance for maintainers. dhf industrial & garage door safety training provides a full and detailed explanation. www.dhfonline.org.uk
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