IEC 60601-1 Hazardous situations and fault condition

Hi friends!!!

In our previous blogs, we have discussed about the following topics.

IEC 60601-1 Definitions

IEC 60601-1 Classification of Medical Electrical Equipment

IEC 60601-1 General Requirements for Testing Medical Electrical Equipment

IEC 60601-1 Medical Electrical Systems

IEC 60601-1 Protection against unwanted and excessive radiation hazards

IEC 60601-1 General Requirements

IEC 60601-1 Programmable Electrical Medical Systems 

EU MDR Assessment Routes

EU MDR Timeline, Annex, Chapter

EU MDR Post Market Surveillance

EU MDR Clinical Evaluation

EU MDR Technical Documentation – Part 1

EU MDR Technical Documentation – Part 2

EU MDR General Safety and Performance Requirement

EU MDR Information on the Label

EU MDR Post Market Clinical Follow Up

EU MDR Unique Device Identification – Part 1 

EU MDR Unique Device Identification – Part 2

EU MDR Classification Rules

EU MDR EUDAMED

EU MDR Economic Operators

EU MDR Chapter & Articles – Part 1

EU MDR Chapter & Articles – Part 2

In today’s blog, we are going to discuss about IEC 60601-1.

IEC 60601-1 states the Basic safety requirements for Medical Electrical Equipment’s. Satisfying the requirements of IEC 60601-1 is an important task in order to commercialize the Medical Electrical Equipment’s

Therefore, it is important for Medical Device QA/RA Professionals to know in detail about Clause 13: Hazardous situations and fault conditions for Medical Electrical Equipment as per IEC 60601-1.

Let’s get into the topic.

Clause 13 – Hazardous Situations and fault conditions for Medical Electrical Equipment

The Clause 13 of IEC 60601-1 states the requirements of Hazardous situations and fault conditions for Medical Electrical Equipment. The following are the Sub-Clauses.

Specific Hazardous Situations

Single Fault Conditions

Specific Hazardous Situations:

The Specific Hazardous Situations shall be further classified as following.

Deformation of enclosure, Emissions or exceeding maximum temperature:

The following Hazardous Situations shall not occur:

The Emission of molten metal, flames, poisonous or ignitable substances in hazardous quantities. 

The deformation of Enclosures shall not occur to an extent which can cause a non-compliance with requirements in IEC 60601-1.

The Temperatures of Applied Parts shall not exceed the allowed values.

The Temperatures of Medical Electrical Equipment parts other than Applied Parts which are likely to be touched shall not exceed the allowed values.

The Temperatures of Accessible Parts which are likely to be touched but are not supposed to be touched to operate the Medical Electrical Equipment shall not exceed the allowed values.

The Temperatures of Accessible Parts which are supposed to be touched to operate the Medical Electrical Equipment shall the exceed the allowed values mentioned.

 

Exceeding Leakage Current or voltage limits:

The following Hazardous Situations shall not occur:

The allowed limits for leakage current in Single Fault Condition shall not exceed.

The allowed voltage limits for Applied Parts and Accessible Parts shall not exceed.

 

Single Fault Conditions:

During the application of the Single Fault Conditions listed below, the Normal Conditions identified as per IEC 60601-1 shall also be applied in the least favorable combination.

 

The Single Fault Conditions are as following:

Electrical Single Fault Condition

Overheating of transformers in Medical Electrical Equipment

Failure of Thermostats

Failure of temperature limiting devices

Leakage of Liquid:

The Medical Electrical Equipment shall be constructed in such a way when there is a liquid leakage during a Single Fault Condition, only a small amount of liquid leaks. The sealed rechargeable batteries are exempted from this requirement.

Impairment of cooling that could result in a Hazardous Situation:

The following are few of examples related to Impairments of cooling that can occur: 

The consecutive locking of single ventilation fans.

The covering of ventilation openings in top and sides of the enclosure or the Medical Electrical  Equipment’s are placed against the walls.

The blockage of filters.

Interruption in the flow of cooling agent.

Locking of Movable Parts:

In Medical Electrical Equipment, the moving parts are locked if it has moving Accessible Parts or Applied Parts which are liable to be jammed or liable to be operated when unattended (this includes automatically or remotely controlled Medical Electrical Equipment), or it has one or more motors with a locked rotor torque smaller than the full load torque.

If Medical Electrical Equipment has more than one moving part as described above, only one moving part is locked at a time. If multiple motors can. be locked in a Single Fault Condition, then all motors are locked simultaneously

Interruption and short circuiting of motor capacitors

Additional test criteria for motor operated Medical Electrical Equipment

Failures of components in Medical Electrical Equipment used in conjunction with Oxygen Rich Environments

Failure of parts that might result in a Mechanical Hazard

Overload

Now I hope you have acquired some knowledge about IEC 60601-1 Clause 13: Hazardous situations and fault conditions for Medical Electrical Equipment. We will meet again with another valuable topic related to Biomedical Engineering, Medical Device, Healthcare.

 

NOTE: Dear friends!!!… Please do comment a topic related to Biomedical, so that we can discuss it in future blogs.


Check out for this blog about Computed Tomography,  X ray, MRI scan, ECG.

 

Generations of CT Scanners

COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY|TECHNOLOGY|ARTIFACTS

x ray machine working principle

components of x ray tube

MRI scan 

MRI With Contrast

Brain MRI

Types of MRI scanners

ELECTROCARDIOGRAM

12 Lead ECG Placement

HOW TO READ AN ECG

Holter Monitor

DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW THIS BLOG PAGE

 

DROP YOUR MAIL ID TO GET IMMEDIATE UPDATES

 

If you find this blog post knowledgeable, comment & share it with a friend! 

 

1 thought on “IEC 60601-1 Hazardous situations and fault condition”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *