New Ex d enclosure technology for Zone 1

R. Stahl’s new explo­sion-pro­tect­ed Ex d Ex Pres­sure enclo­sure tech­nol­o­gy is a future­proof alter­na­tive to con­ven­tion­al enclo­sure encap­su­la­tion. Com­plete switchgear assem­blies and dis­tri­b­u­tion boards can be housed in a sin­gle Ex Pres­sure enclo­sure, sav­ing sig­nif­i­cant amounts of space and weight and mak­ing main­te­nance a whole lot eas­i­er. Com­po­nents can be quick­ly retro­fit­ted, mod­i­fied or removed at any time and with lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty. The inno­v­a­tive Atex- and IECEx-cer­ti­fied Ex Pres­sure switch cab­i­net series fea­tures a unique pres­sure relief system.

Spe­cial stain­less steel wire mesh ensures that pres­sure with­in the enclo­sure can be reduced effec­tive­ly, serv­ing as a flame­proof bar­ri­er that allows for a con­trolled flow of gas cou­pled with heat absorp­tion. This reduces the inter­nal pres­sure in the event of an explo­sion to a max­i­mum val­ue of less than 1 bar; sparks that might oth­er­wise cause an explo­sion are safe­ly con­tained inside the enclo­sure thanks to the spe­cial mesh struc­ture. The Ex d‑certified pres­sure-relief tech­nol­o­gy allows for wall thick­ness­es of just 2 mm; com­pared to con­ven­tion­al Ex d flame­proof enclo­sures, there­by helps to save space require­ment and up to 50% weight. Addi­tion­al­ly, this makes trans­porta­tion, han­dling and instal­la­tion sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er. The Ex Pres­sure con­cept also proves to be a viable alter­na­tive and has many attrib­ut­es when com­pared with Ex p pres­sur­ized enclo­sures – it is more effi­cient and involves far less design work.

R. Stahl’s stain­less steel enclo­sure with Ex Pres­sure tech­nol­o­gy comes in a choice of four enclo­sure sizes, rang­ing from 300 x 400 x 200 mm to 1000 x 1400 x 700 mm. These IP66-rat­ed switch cab­i­nets are avail­able with either a sin­gle-leaf door or a dou­ble door. The large, undi­vid­ed space inside the enclo­sure pro­vides easy, unob­struct­ed access for instal­la­tion, main­te­nance and inspec­tion work. The vol­ume avail­able with­in the enclo­sure for installing equip­ment is iden­ti­cal to that of many con­ven­tion­al indus­tri­al switch cab­i­nets and con­trol box­es and allows the switchgear lay­out used for non-haz­ardous areas to be used unchanged for haz­ardous areas with­out any addi­tion­al engi­neer­ing work.