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RoboticsReleasing the stored energy
Your locks are on the robot's isolating devices, but a machine cut off from its source can still hold energy: in capacitors, springs, raised machine members, hydraulic lines or air pressure. Now you relieve, disconnect or restrain all of it. If it can build up again, you keep checking until the work is done. It is the stored energy step of the federal lockout/tagout rule.
Free to startScenarios
- The robot's power is locked out and its capacitors may still hold a charge.
- A pneumatic or hydraulic line still holds pressure after the valve is locked.
- Energy can build up again while the servicing goes on.
The steps
- After the locks or tags are on, look for every stored or residual energy left in the robot.
- Check capacitors, springs, elevated machine members, rotating flywheels, hydraulic systems and air, gas, steam or water pressure.
- Relieve, disconnect or restrain each one so it is safe, by grounding, repositioning, blocking or bleeding down.
- If the stored energy could build up to a hazardous level again, keep verifying the isolation until the servicing is done or that can no longer happen.
Safety rules that stop the station
- A machine is still energized if it holds residual or stored energy, even when it is cut off from its source.
- This step comes after the locks or tags are applied, never before.
To pass
- All potentially hazardous stored or residual energy was relieved, disconnected or restrained.
- Where energy can build up again, verification continued until the work was done.
- Removing some kinds of blocking may need the machine to be re-energized before it can be done safely.
Official source
Federal · OSHA, 29 CFR 1910.147(d)(5)
29 CFR 1910.147, The control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout)
GovInfo publishes 29 CFR 1910.147 free: paragraph (d)(5) requires releasing all stored energy after the locks go on, and its appendix lists where that energy hides.
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