Intrinsic safety is a methodology that prevents explosions from occurring by ensuring that the electrical systems in a hazardous area fall below the amount of energy required to ignite an explosion. The major advantage of an intrinsically safe solution is that it addresses the problems found in hazardous areas and is accepted in regulations such as the ATEX Directives and OSHA.
The same intrinsically safe equipment can usually satisfy the demands for both dust and gas hazards. Intrinsic safe systems permit live maintenance within the hazardous area without the need to obtain "gas clearance" certificates, particularly important for instrumentation, since fault-finding on de-energized equipment is difficult.
The latest Ethernet-APL applies to Ethernet communication with sensors and actuators in the process industry and is based on the new 10BASE-T1L (IEEE802.3cg-2019) Ethernet physical-layer standard, which specifies the implementation and explosion protection methods for use in hazardous locations.
In this video, Frederik Dostal of Analog Devices shows us a demonstration of the The LT8440 power conditioner for APL Field Devices to enable intrinsically safe, industrial Ethernet ports in hazardous or explosive environments. The LT8440 comes in an eight-lead SOIC with pin spacing so that shorts from pin to pin are countable faults when the circuit is examined for intrinsic safety at the highest levels of protection.
