E.S.M. provided functional safety engineering services to a local automotive manufacturer in their development of a fully electric light vehicle for a mine site in NSW.
The manufacturer’s design removed the diesel engine from an Original Equipment Manufactured (OEM) vehicle and replaced it with an electric motor and battery bank. As the new electric drive system impacted the safety of the vehicle, functional safety engineering was required to demonstrate that the safety related parts of the electric drive system were of sufficient integrity and reliability.
E.S.M. provided guidance and services across the functional safety lifecycle typical of AS IEC 61508 and determined the implementation and integrity requirements to the performance levels defined in Australian Safety of Machinery standard AS 4024.1503.
Working closely with the manufacturer’s engineers, E.S.M. performed a Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostics Analysis (FMEDA) of the safety-related parts of the vehicle control system. The FMEDA report provided documented evidence that potential failures of the safety functions had been identified and made recommendations to reduce dangerous and undetected failure modes.
E.S.M. also developed the Functional Safety Management Plant (FSMP) for the vehicle. The plan defined the activities that needed to be carried out and the organisations and personnel responsible for carrying out these activities, such that the safety-related parts of the control system would achieve the required level of functional safety both initially and throughout their operation and maintenance.
E.S.M. assisted in writing the safety-related software requirements, provided technical guidance on the design of the safety functions, including architectures and automatic testing to increase reliability and fault detection, and performed the necessary reliability calculations to verify that the required performance levels, up to PL-d, were achieved. E.S.M. then developed plans and procedures for the testing, verification and validation of the safety functions.
