Performance Level (PL)
WHAT IS MEANT BY PERFORMANCE LEVEL?
Through the integration of product certification and safety certification services of machinery and plants, ECO Certificazioni is equipped to carry out diverse activities in relation to Performance Level evaluations. These activities span all phases of design, definition, and verification of the Performance Level (PL):
- Machinery analysis to identify safety functions
- Evaluation and analysis of the required Performance Level based on identification of the risks
- Design of safety functions
- Functional and reliability block diagrams (FBD, RBD)
- Support for machinery software design
- Performance Level verification of safety functions according to ISO 13849
- Validation and in-use tests of the safety functions
- Tool Used: IFA SISTEMA SOFTWARE ISO 13849
REGULATORY REFERENCES
The topics addressed by the family of standards IEC 61508 – Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Safety Systems and related standards (ISO 13849, ISO 16232, IEC 62061, IEC 61800-5-2, IEC 61496, EN 50495, etc.) constitute the state of the art and the normative reference for the design and management of safety systems in plants. These give particular attention to electrical, electronic, and programmable electronic systems. They find broad application in various industrial sectors such as chemical, petrochemical, refining, nuclear, transportation, electro-medical, industrial automation, and automotive.
Directive Machinery 2006/42/EC mandates that safety-related parts of the control system must be designed and constructed to prevent any faults in the machine’s control logic from causing hazardous events. Therefore, the purpose is to determine the Performance Level (PL) achieved. This is based on the parameters of the control chain. Key criteria are the Diagnostic Coverage (DC) and Mean Time To Dangerous Failure (MTTFD) or B10D for electromechanical/mechanical components. These criteria are crucial for assessing and ensuring the safety integrity of the machinery’s control system.
The purpose of these standards is to determine the Performance Level (PL) or Safety Integrity Level (SIL) achieved, based on the system architecture and component reliability.
HOW ECO OPERATES ECO
Certifications’ verification of safety-related parts of the control system is a modular voluntary service. It is structured in phases, designed to accompany machine manufacturers from defining safety functions derived from the machine’s risk analysis, then moving on to defining functional diagrams (Functional Block Diagram, FBD, and Reliability Block Diagram, RBD), to evaluating the required functional safety parameters and the corresponding level of reliability (SIL/PL required). Finally, it involves verifying the correct design through the evaluation of analyzed reliability parameters (SIL/PL verification), including the preparation of relevant sections of documentation (Manuals for Safety Loops).