On Friday, August 25th, Hurricane Harvey hit the South Texas coast. Consequently, the storm front struck our new manufacturing and warehouse building in Katy, Texas. High wind from a hurricane tornado damaged our roof structure, pulling air handling units from the roof and allowing water to enter the building.

When installing a purged control panel or industrial HMI in a hazardous location, power supplied to the control panel must be regulated so that components are not energized before the panel is protected by a purge cycle.

The maximum size of an Ex pz purge enclosure is determined by the pressure and flow that can be reached inside the enclosure. For this 'how to' post, I'll use our 5500 series purge system for the examples.

Depending on your application, there are three vent options that you can use with your system. The EPV-5500-…-01, EPV-5500-…-02, or EPV-5500-…-03. Each vent opens at a different back pressure and has different flow rates, which are listed below.

Integrating complex electrical systems and components into hazardous areas typically requires combining different methods of industrial explosion protection to achieve a safe and certified solution. Our Solution Engineering Centers have the ability and the experience as a system integrator for solutions going into Zone 1 and 21 or Zone 2 and 22 areas. Our ATEX and IECEx certificates offer great flexibility, allowing  unique solutions for the challenges of putting complex electrical equipment in hazardous locations around the world.

When using the 5500 Type Z purge and pressurization system, you are given 3 vent options to choose from.  This gives you the option to choose a vent based on the needs of your application. The 3 models are:

To calculate the purging time on our 5500 series Type Z purge system, there are four variables that you need to know:

Most people are amazed that the dust from a number of everyday materials can become explosive under the right conditions: grains, sugar, metals, plastics, coal, coffee creamer, corn – just to name a few.

Because of this potential for explosion, dust hazards exist in many different industries:

• Food processing
• Pharmaceutical
• Automotive
• Textiles
• Cosmetics
• Refining

The award marks the 13th consecutive year for the top purge award

In the categories of Purge and Intrinsic Safety, Pepperl+Fuchs has steadfastly dominated opinion polls by readers of two of the industry’s leading publications. This year, Pepperl+Fuchs once again was voted best provider of intrinsic safety and industrial enclosure purge systems by Control magazine in its 2016 Readers’ Choice survey.

If you're considering a programmable purge unit, you may be wondering how easy it is to set up and configure it the way you want.

Before we take a look at the menu-driven features of our Bebco EPS 5500 series purge system for Div. 2 / Zone 2 applications, let’s go over some of the general aspects of purge protection.

Customers often want to know what exactly is a Class I, Div. 2 industrial display. Or, what choices there are for HMI visualization and machine control in a Division 2 area, and if a purge system is required. The answers depend on what is connected to the display, and the type of HMI software. This information helps you decide whether to look at an industrial monitor, a panel PC, or a networked monitor via thin client or KVM back to a host in a control room.