Structure Analysis for the ISO 13849-1 Standard Based on a Stochastic Behavior Using Markov Chains

Abstract

In order to improve quality in industrial production, reduce environmental impacts and industrial accidents, maintenance engineering has focused on developing techniques, methodologies and standards to approach these critical issues in industrial automation. The EN ISO 13849-1 standard is a protocol to be followed in order to ensure the decrease of negative impacts in safety. This article presents a methodology that allows using the EN ISO 13849-1 standard in a quantitative way by applying the probability theory. This is established by using Markov chains, which effectively describe the evolution of the degradation of industrial systems by making a quantitative calculation of the safety level of a system in order to present a numeric description of the safety structures and weigh the response of the safety system by including the traditional qualitative method