We are putting a bid in on a project that is requiring intrinsically safe laser scanners and survey total stations. Does anyone know of anything out there that would be certified "intrinsically safe"?
As I understand it none of the big survey equipment providers have or will label their equipment intrinsically safe.
"Intrinsic" belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing, per my Merriam Webster.
Wouldn't all of them be intrinsically safe then?
I'm guessing this project will involve work in an area where gasses might be set off by a spark. I've heard the phrase "intrinsically safe" in that context. I can't see how anything with a removable battery could qualify.
Place the burden back to the ones writing the contract, and demand that they provide a list of approved equipment, and then require their on site approval of the equipment you bring to the job, all before signing the contract.
jud
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Ask them what equipment their current vendors use.
Z+F makes an intrinsically safe laser scanner. I doubt the existing vendors use them. We proposed work in a refinery that required us to use intrinsically safe equipment. The refinery did not require their existing vendors to use intrinsically safe equipment.
I'm on our local fire dept. and our radios, pagers, etc must be intrinsically safe for explosion hazards. I doubt very much ANY of our survey equipment would qualify. Good luck with that one.
It has to do with explosive proof equipment. So far, if they get down and nasty with it then I will go back to a Topcon 3B.
We have found and have on the 'wishlist' the Z+F 'intrinsically' safe scanner. About $250k last time we checked. I am surprised that some manufacturer in surveying doesn't come up with the same thing considering all of the coal mining surveying going on in this country. Seems rather stupid if you ask me.
"Back in the day", we were doing an asbuilt inside the gas plant on the slope. Accidentally "hit" an infrared fire sensor with the beam from the edm! Triggered a major halon dump! Holy crap! Barely got out of the building before all the doors automatically closed.
-JD-
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From a search: explosion proof laser scanners
http://www.minesurveyor.net/sponsor_appliedresolution.php
http://geomaticsjc.lboro.ac.uk/Trimble/TrimbleM3DR_UG_1B.pdf
Also look to the client's policy on chance of a static discharge.
Cheers,
Derek
I do know that you cannot use any EDM in a coal mine.
I know Leica has instruments that are rated for flammable environs.
We got this question from time to time at Leica Tech Support. As far as I know there are no intrinsically safe total stations if you have one that runs on a battery. Even if you have an old manual theodolite it is not because it is made of metal.... if the instrument was dropped and the metal housing strikes some hard surface and will possibly make a spark on contact.... then it is not. We could never certify this because unless the instrument was made of rubber or wood you could not match spec's. I did hear of some people who would open up a total station and fill all voids in the housing with expanding foam. This is not an option unless you know what your are doing and will just leave the instrument in the mine or work area permanently.
I am not sure if you would have to dig into the specifications and just meet some catagory that is close to what the want.
A cloth tape, wooden pencils and notepads are the only things I can think of that would meet their demands.
Once worked in a coal mining plant with a Topcon GTS 3B in early 1990s. No problem encountered.
Once worked for Shell Refineries using Topcon GTS 229 in early 2000s. No explosions encountered.
Sometimes, I feel that most HSE requirements are bordering on the ridiculous. They are more there for insurance requirements than for safety of workers.
Companies need insurances for accident coverages & these insurance companies then up the ante on safety requirements.
In one recent bathymetry survey for Shell, their safety officer required our bathymetry surveyor to wear a reflective traffic safety vest. My project engineer argued that it has no use since he will be wearing a buoyancy life vest over the safety vest. The safety vest under the life vest will have no use since it will be covered entirely by the life vest. Also the life vest already has colored bright reflective yellow strips on it for visibility.
The safety officer said that he won't sign off the work permit without the complete gears.
HSE requirements sometimes contradict common sense.
I work on the "North Slope of Alaska" and we use total stations and scanners inside modules that are non-intrinsically safe. We use a "hot Permit" which indicates that an area operator has to "sniff" the area prior to any work being done. They also bypass the Halon system in those areas to prevent any discharges due to our equipment. It is almost the same approach in the Canadian oil fields, and refineries that I have worked in down south.
So... if you don't find some intrinsically safe equipment, approach your client with these procedural safe guards to be in place if possible.
It seems to me that simple power tools with motors windings and brushes would be more likely to produce an igniting spark than any internal connection within survey equipment. I don't know.
"...Intrinsically safe instrumentation refers to equipment and wiring which is incapable of releasing sufficient electrical or thermal energy under normal or abnormal conditions to cause ignition of a specific hazardous atmospheric mixture in its most easily ignited concentration," says Eric Goodall, GeoSystems Africa' service engineer. "This is achieved by limiting the amount of power available to the electrical equipment in the hazardous area to a level below that which will ignite the gases. Intrinsically safe instrumentation assumes the fuel and oxygen is present in the atmosphere, but the system is designed so the electrical energy or thermal energy of a particular instrument loop can never be great enough to cause ignition."
Traditionally, protection from explosion in hazardous environments has been accomplished by either using explosion proof apparatus, which can contain an explosion inside an enclosure, or pressurisation that isolates the explosive gas from the electrical equipment. Intrinsically safe apparatus cannot replace these methods in all applications, but where possible can provide significant cost savings in installation and maintenance of the equipment in a hazardous area..."Leica TPS400
