The ATEX certification? Let’s discover it together.

The term “ATEX”, acronym of “Atmosphere” and “Explosive”, groups two European Union directives: one for the certification by users of plants and equipment to guarantee the safety and the health of workers in explosive risk environments; the other to bring up to standard products and equipment intended to be used in explosive risk areas.

In this latter case falls the certification that Fiam provides for its customers regarding special air motors, as our Mechanical Designer Mr. Paolo Girotto explains: “To certify ATEX an air motor means to declare that our product can be used in explosive risk environments or inside certain machines that require additional caution”.

The areas where explosive atmospheres can be formed in quantities such as to request particular protection measures are very often located in the following productive sectors: landfill sites and civil engineering, chemical industry, energy production, disposal, gas supply, wood industry, painting, agriculture, metallurgy, food and feed industry, pharmaceutical industry, refineries, waste recycling.

The solutions intended to be used in areas that fall within the ATEX characteristics need to be also classified in detail by the manufacturer. For example, regarding the type of substances widespread in the air, the classifications with indication 0,1 and 2 refer to gas, while the ones with indication 20, 21 and 22 to dusts; conversely, concerning the group of materials, we classify as I the specific case of use in mines, while with group II we refer to the use in all the other surface industries.

“To those customers who have environments with ATEX areas we can supply air motors suitable to be used in those areas specifically classified, so that they can meet the requirements dictated by the technical standards of reference. To certify ATEX a pneumatic air motor means to design it and to produce it according to specific directives and lastly to provide it with a certificate, following appropriate tests carried out both internally in our company laboratories and externally in accredited laboratories. At the end of the process, the whole technical file is deposited to the German certification body TÜV Italy, which releases the certificate of conformity of the products to the ATEX directive 2014/34/UE” continues Mr. Girotto.

Mr. Girotto concludes: “The major advantage of choosing a Fiam air motor in comparison to competitors is certainly represented by the lower price and the flexibility given. Very often the competitors’ air motors already provide the ATEX version as a standard and of course with a higher price, even if the customer doesn’t need that certification. The flexibility offered by Fiam instead allows to realize in a very short time and even for small production lots a personalized air motor with the specific ATEX certification required”.

Discover more on Fiam’s ATEX certifiable air motors at the following link:

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