Automation Gates

Electric Gates for the East Midlands (01773) 512003

Automatic gates like all other moving machinery have to conform to the machinery directive legislation. This legislation states that manufacturers of machinery must assess the risks presented to users of their equipment and take all practical steps to mitigate these risks. The state-of-the-art for automatic gates is defined in the British standard BS-EN13241-1. This is an umbrella standard which refers to various other British/EN standards including:

EN12453 : Defines hazard points of automatic gate systems and the maximum forces allowed on impact with an object or person.
EN12445 : Defines how the impact forces should be tested on an automatic electric gate is installation.
EN1760-2 : Defines the operating characteristics of pressure sensitive safety ribs.
EN12978 : Defines the operating characteristics of various safety equipment, ensuring that these devices fail in safe manner.

The first step in beginning a new installation of bringing an existing installation of safety standards is the risk assessment. The installation needs to be examined and any possible causes of injury recorded. It is then possible to begin choosing the methods that will be taken to remove or mitigate these risks. these methods can be simple such as a physical guard to stop children from reaching a sliding gate motor or sophisticated such as a radar system that shuts down the equipment when anybody enters the danger area.

The most common methods used are

Safety by design : eliminating a hazard by redesigning the installation for example using hinges that do not lead to a change in the size of gap between the end of the gate and post it is hanging off.
Infrared safety beams : beams of light shining across the gateway to detect when an obstacle is entering the danger zone at the gate.
Pressure sensitive ribs : strips of a soft rubber material that detect when anything comes into contact with them. Often used on gates or the posts they close up to stop the gates from crushing anything in the way of the gates travel.
Force limitation on motors : Electronic devices within the motor itself that allow the motor to detect when an unusually high level of force is needed to move the gate and stop.

It is our company policy to produce a risk assessment of each new customer, either when the gate installed or when we first visit your propeerty. This risk assessment will be updated as needed when changes are made to your system.

It is also our company policy to undertake a safety check everytime we visit one of our customers. We will test all of your electric gates safety systems, including a subset of force tests.

We will undertake a full set of force tests to BS-EN12445 if we change gate motors, control panel or change force settings on your control panel

If your site is a high risk site such as a school we can train site staff you nominate in how to undertake the basic safety test on a monthly basis so you can udertake it as part of your regular health and safety checks.