This European Standard is applicable to detection and measurement apparatus and systems for flammable or toxic gases or vapours or oxygen. It covers apparatus intended to measure reliably, gas concentration and to provide an output signal (alarm and/or measurement signal), the purpose of which is to give a warning of a potential hazard.

This European Standard is a product standard which is based on EN 61508 (all parts) and for gas detection systems covers both low and high demand mode at SIL capabilities of 1, 2 or 3 only. Gas detection apparatus and gas detection systems are developed as generic products. This European Standard covers part of the phase 10 “realization” of the overall safety lifecycle defined in EN 61508‑1:2010, Figure 2. Configuration and integration into specific applications is not covered by this European Standard.

In the event of conflict between the requirements of this European Standard and those of EN 61508, EN 50402 will take precedence.

This European Standard is dedicated mainly to fixed apparatus and systems. However, it can also be applied to transportable gas detectors which are intended to be used as temporary replacements for fixed apparatus.

This European Standard supplements the requirements of the European Standards for electrical apparatus for the detection and measurement of flammable gases, vapours (e.g. EN 60079‑29‑1 or EN 60079‑29‑4), toxic gases (e.g. EN 45544) or oxygen (e.g. EN 50104).

The examples above show the state of the standardization for industrial applications at the time of publishing this European Standard. There may be other metrological standards covering other application fields, for which this European Standard is also applicable.

EN 50271 specifies minimum requirements for apparatus using software and/or digital components. It also defines additional optional requirements for compliance with SIL 1 in low demand mode operation. EN 50402 includes all requirements of EN 50271.

EN 50402 is also dedicated to apparatus and gas detection systems and/or components and should be used instead of EN 50271 in the following cases:

Applying the above-mentioned metrological standards will ensure the performance is adequate in normal operation of a gas detection system. Additionally, the requirements of this European Standard address the functional safety of gas detection systems and encompass criteria for reliability, fault tolerance and avoidance of systematic failures. The avoidance and control of systematic failures will be covered by the requirements for the development processes and techniques and diagnostic measures chosen in the design. This European Standard will lead to the characterization of the gas detection system by a SIL-capability and related hardware failure rate representing a hierarchical order of safety levels. This will allow the user to incorporate the gas detection system into an overall safety system according to the safety integrity levels of EN 61508 (all parts).

This European Standard is applicable for gas detection systems, which may consist of the following functional units:

This European Standard does not specify requirements for the installation and maintenance of gas detection systems. It also does not specify the physical positioning of measuring points / locations.

This European Standard does not specify which SIL-capability is sufficient for which application.