BS EN ISO 13857:2019

What is ISO 13857 - Safety distance to prevent hazards in machinery about?

ISO 13857 discusses safety distances to prevent hazards. It is an international standard on the safety of machinery to maintain safety distances to prevent hazards.

ISO 13857 establishes values for safety distances in both industrial and non-industrial environments to prevent machinery hazard zones from being reached. The safety distances are appropriate for protective structures. ISO 13857 also provides for distances to impede free access by the lower limbs (see Annex B).

ISO 13857 covers people 14 years and older. In addition, for upper limbs only, it provides information for children older than 3 years where reaching through openings needs to be addressed.

Note 1: It is not practical to specify safety distances for all persons. Therefore, the values presented under ISO 13857 are intended to cover the 95th percentile of the population.

Note 2: ISO 13857 is not intended to provide measures against reaching a hazard zone by climbing over (see ISO 14120:2015, 5.18).

Note 3: ISO 13857 does not provide the required risk reduction for every hazard.

Note 4: Under ISO 13857 the clauses covering lower limbs apply on their own only when access by the upper limbs to the same hazard zone is not foreseeable according to the risk assessment.

Who is ISO 13857 - Safety distance to prevent hazards in machinery for?

ISO 13857 on safety distance to prevent hazards in machinery is useful for:

• Machine manufacturers (small, medium, and large enterprises)
• Health and safety bodies (regulators, accident prevention organizations, market surveillance, etc.)
• Machine employees (e.g., trade unions, organizations for people with special needs)
• Machine employers (small, medium, and large enterprises)
• Service providers, e. g. for maintenance

Why should you use ISO 13857 - Safety distance to prevent hazards in machinery?

A method of eliminating or reducing risks caused by machinery is to make use of safety distances preventing hazard zones from being reached by the upper and lower limbs.

ISO 13857 provides you with values for risk assessment, safety distances to prevent access by lower limbs, safety distances to prevent access by lower limbs, and the effect of additional protective structures on safety distances.

The values provided by ISO 13857 assist you to maintain a safe distance with machinery to prevent hazards and reduce the risk associated with these hazards.

By adopting ISO 13857 the user can reduce associated hazards involved with hazard zones being reached by upper and lower limbs.

What’s changed since the last update?

BS EN ISO 13857:2019 supersedes ISO 13857:2008, which is withdrawn. BS EN ISO 13857:2019 has made some technical changes with respect to ISO 12100:2010.