Product Safety

The safety hierarchy is a flexible concept that can be helpful in deciding on a final product design. But it can also be a trap for the unwary design engineer. This article will discuss the safety hierarchy concept, how do you comply with its requirements, and what are the problems associated with it?

Modern lithium batteries require a comprehensive approach to risk assessment and mitigation during product development, and a swift and systematic response when safety concerns arise in the field.

The formation of branching patterns is commonly associated with electrical discharges. Lightning and electrostatic discharges from a Van de Graaff generator are transient luminous branching patterns, and sometimes the passing of an electrical current leaves residual physical patterns. Examples of how such patterns are formed are presented.

This article will discuss the basic kinds of defects that can be alleged in any product liability case, the law as it pertains to compliance with standards, and some tips on how to deal with the issue of standards compliance.

This article discusses the legal and practical issues around the duty to design a safe product and how to decide whether various safety features that aren’t always necessary must be sold as standard features or whether they can be sold separately as options.

This article identifies the burn injury threshold conditions associated with finite thermal mass objects and presents a model for predicting the degree of burn injury.

This article explains the development process of a proficiency testing programme that is suitable for electrical and mechanical safety tests. The process for testing the homogeneity and stability of specimens is also discussed.

This article discusses additional requirements that designers and safety professionals may want to consider beyond the base standard for their product based on the environment and user exposure.

This article provides an overview of current standards applicable to rechargeable lithium and lithium-ion batteries.

The elements of a program to deal with pre-sale and post-sale safety issues are well-known. But the specifics of what elements should be used and how by a particular manufacturer are often unknown. Therefore, the most important question that must be answered by any company manufacturing finished products or component parts is “What should my company do and how should I do it?”