CompEx - Explosion Protection Concepts

There are several methods and concepts which may be used in potentially explosive environments. The table below identifies the types of protection based on the Zone/EPL/Category requirements. It is absolutely essential to memorise this table in order to successfully complete the CompEx course.

Zone/EPL/Category	Types of protection
Zone 0 or EPL Ga or Cat 1	Ia, ma
Zone 1 or EPL Gb or Cat 2	d, e, mb, o, p, q, ib
Zone 2 or EPL Gc or Cat 3	n, s, ic, mc

 

Types of protection:

i - Intrinsic safety (ia, ib, or ic)

m - Encapsulation (ma, mb, mc)

d - Flameproof or explosion proof enclosure

e - Increased safety

o - Oil immersion

p - Pressurisation

q - Powder filling

n - Reduced risk

s - Special

A full CompEx course for a practising electrician covers all of these types, but only i, d, e, and n types will be covered in full detail, simply because these are the most common protection types in the UK.

Our guide for the electricians CompEx course will therefore only cover these most common protection types.

Once again we emphasize that our guide is only a good orientation tool for the actual CompEx course, the scope of which is much wider, with a great deal of important details not mentioned here. This guide focuses on the absolutely essential, by learning which the candidate will get a good head start for the actual course, which otherwise could be surprisingly demanding.