the benefits of hazardous location led lighting

Industrial facilities with hazardous locations will realize much more than just enhanced safety with hazardous location LED lighting. Safety and security for employees who work in hazardous locations will always be of paramount importance, and in itself safety is a legitimate reason to install properly-rated LED lighting in those locations. The added benefits of hazardous location LED lighting will further justify their installation.

Industry and regulatory standards define the criteria for designating a work area as a hazardous location. An atmosphere around an industrial or manufacturing facility, for example, might include concentrations of flammable vapors, dusts, or fibers. This is particularly true for work areas in confined spaces, where vapor concentrations might build up and create an even greater hazard. Even if flammable substances are only stored or carried through work areas in sealed containers, their mere presence in the area means that the area is a hazardous location per the relevant classification standards. Hazardous location LED lighting will contain light fixtures with stronger housing and tempered glass that encase sparks and other potential ignition sources away from a flammable substance.

Benefits of Hazardous Location LED Lighting

Like other forms of LED lighting, hazardous location LED lighting is energy efficient and extremely durable. On average, an LED fixture will generate the same or better illumination as a traditional industrial lighting fixture with up to 90% less electrical energy input. The fixtures will also continue to work at acceptable levels for up to 50,000 hours, and in some cases up to 100,000 hours of operation. fvtled LED is a premier domestic manufacturer and designer of LED lighting fixtures and products and offers three different lines of hazardous location LED lighting that include durable fixtures constructed from copper free aluminum with superior double-folded aluminum fin heat sink technology to reduce the physical temperature of the fixture itself, which both improves durability and further reduces the potential for catastrophic ignition of airborne flammable substances.

These efficiency and durability characteristics save substantial operating and maintenance costs for industrial and manufacturing facilities while simultaneously providing the desired safe environment for workers. Designers and facilities managers who are selecting hazardous location LED fixtures can simply match the characteristics of an environment with the rating standards that apply to those fixtures. Class I hazardous lighting fixtures are designed for environments that include chemical vapors that might ignite when certain concentrations of those vapors come into contact with an ignition source, such as an electrical spark. Class II fixtures are designed for environments with concentrations of flammable dust, and Class III fixtures are for environments with airborne fibers.  These Classes are further subdivided in Divisions, which are a function of whether the flammable substances are actually used in an environment or are stored or transported through that environment in sealed containers. The Divisions are broken down into seven different Groups that are defined by the actual substances and their relative flammability levels. Group A fixtures, for example, are rated for safe use in environments in which acetylene is used or stored.   

Choosing the best hazardous location LED light fixture for a particular industrial application can be a difficult task for anyone who does not have a good understanding of the different Class, Division, and Group designations that apply to those fixtures.

fvtled LED’s industrial lighting specialists are available to review all types of industrial facilities to help a manager or designer to select the fixtures that will provide the optimum benefits for their facilities.