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Richard Nute

Richard Nute is a product safety consultant engaged in safety design, safety manufacturing, safety certification, safety standards, and forensic investigations. Mr. Nute holds a B.S. in Physical Science from California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California. He studied in the MBA curriculum at University of Oregon. He is a former Certified Fire and Explosions Investigator. Mr. Nute is a Life Senior Member of the IEEE, a charter member of the Product Safety Engineering Society (PSES), and a Director of the IEEE PSES Board of Directors. He was technical program chairman of the first 5 PSES annual Symposia and has been a technical presenter at every Symposium. Mr. Nute’s goal as an IEEE PSES Director is to change the product safety environment from being standards-driven to being engineering-driven; to enable the engineering community to design and manufacture a safe product without having to use a product safety standard; to establish safety engineering as a required course within the electrical engineering curricula.

From This Author

Two Measures, Two Levels

What is a “level of protection”? What are “measures of safety”? Why do they apply only to electric shock and not to other injuries?

Markings and Other Aggravations

Why? Why is it that one of the biggest aggravations in product safety is that of markings? For some reason, it seems that we can never get the markings right the first time. Furthermore, it seems that markings that have been acceptable for years will suddenly go bad.

Fire Prevention

The best solution to fire - any fire - is to prevent fire in the first place.

Fire Enclosures

In our last issue, I discussed heating, pyrolysis, and combustion processes necessary for a...

Electrically-Caused Fire

Probably the single most frequently occurring and most misunderstood issue in electronic product safety is electrically-caused fire. I thought I would review fire processes in plastics materials (the most common flammable construction material in electronic products).
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Transients in Secondary Circuits

Richard Nute examines how transformers behave when subjected to transient overvoltage, both magnetically and capacitively.

Leakage Current Measuring Circuits

The leakage current measuring circuits in IEC 950 and those in North America are exactly the same.

The Myth of Accessibility

Almost every safety standard has requirements addressing the accessibility of certain parts.

Working Voltage, Electric Strength, and Spacings

For the purposes of safety, what is “working voltage,” and what is its relevance to the safety of the equipment?

Testing Safety Into Products

In a recent discussion with a third-party certifier, there was an implication that a...
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