Namur releases NE 138:

The NAMUR Recommendation NE 138 has been released and may now be obtained from the NAMUR Office: hazardous potentially explosive atmospheres – process control equipment in the context of explosion protection measures. In addition to the area regulated by equipment-specific standards for explosion protection, explosion protection measures are also achieved or monitored using process control technology.

This document describes the requirements to be met by process control equipment for the realisation of explosion protection measures. It does not replace the risk assessment for explosion protection based on appropriate technical regulations for industrial safety (e.g. TRBS 2152), but is rather a further development of this.

In addition to SIL-evaluated measures, the examples illustrated in the document are designed to also examine other proven procedures. Moreover, NE 138 and VDI 2180 Sheet 6 “Safeguarding of industrial process plants by means of process control engineering (PCE) - Application of functional safety in the context of explosion protection” complement each other. Care was taken to ensure that the examples in NE 138 are based on the principles of the upcoming Part 5 of TRBS 2152.