According to Brockhaus: the absence of danger or the certainty for an individual, a group or a community to be safe from potential dangers. In connection with technical matters, the term safety describes the characteristic of an object (component, device, machine, system) not to present an unacceptable danger for persons, other facilities or the environment when being used as directed.
The safety issue is dealt with under two aspects:
. The IEC 61508 and the EN 954-1 standard are relevant for automation systems.
functional safety. This issue is focussed on under the headline
tolerable risk associated with a failure of the unit under consideration based on the failure probability and potential extent of damage to a minimum, however, at least below an acceptable
risk
2. On the assumption that the object under consideration does not work properly or is subject to a complete failure. The second aspect is subject to technical safety studies and measures intending to avoid the occurrence of dangerous system states as far as possible or to keep the
1. Under the premise that the object under consideration works and is used as intended. This mainly concerns health, safety at work and fire protection and is subject to numerous applicable laws, regulations, and directives.
