We speak more and more often about workplace safety referring to the set of measures and assessments that must be implemented to protect the health and integrity of workers from surrounding risks.
Each company, therefore, cannot exempt itself from giving the subject the attention it deserves by leveraging on two dimensions: prevention and protection.
Whether it is a construction site, an office or your home, risk factors, accidents and injuries, occupational diseases must be eliminated or, at least, reduced and controlled. This is certainly also reflected in the productivity and development of the company itself.
Certainly some types of work present greater dangers than others; for example, the maintenance of railway vehicles and exposure to high voltage electricity requires the presence of highly qualified and trained personnel in addition to the presence of safety devices, such as voltage detectors, earthing switches, insulation sticks.
The protection and safety of maintenance systems, on board trains or infrastructures, is therefore guaranteed by means of devices capable of ensuring maximum reliability for operators, even in the most severe environmental conditions (for example, in coastal or industrial areas or in presence of extreme temperatures …).
Interrupting the power supply and then grounding a high voltage circuit efficiently before performing maintenance is essential for the safety of personnel.
The human factor is fundamental and our goal is to allow the operator to act easily and without the possibility of error, in complete safety and serenity.
In this context, our manually operated earthing switch is a valuable ally in the daily work of thousands of maintenance workers. Ergonomics, ease of operation and certainty of the result are essential features for these safety devices. At SPII we design solutions that want to make life easier: easy to define, configure, install, use and maintain.
The modular and multipole disconnector is used for applications from 600V to 3KV DC. It is highly configurable according to the specific application: it can vary in the number of poles, in the switching sequence and in the operating mode (manual, electric, pneumatic).
The safety of our devices can be further increased by integrating diagnostic modules for sending information, for example temperature, position or contact wear, to CBM systems or they can be equipped with safety devices such as locks, exchangers or key holders.
Our traditional knife switch is also used for grounding the HV circuits downstream of the traction converter. The blades, in this configuration, are operated directly by the maintenance operator by means of an insulation stick.
The range of application is very wide in terms of both voltage (from 600-750V DC to 3KV DC) and rated operating current. Also in this case, the solution is plug & play and can be supplied with an integrated box for all components, complete with wiring and pre-tested in the laboratory.
Our disconnectors are compact, flexible in use, reliable and require little maintenance.
Technology, Safety and Ergonomics? These are the keywords.
Learn more: http://www.spii.eu/our-solutions/ac-dc-rail/
See you next time!
Valentina Marrese
