ANACAM MAGAZINE - n.3 luglio | settembre 2021

63 la normativa europea, con le novità introdotte nelle EN 81-20 ed EN 81-50 ha voluto rimarcare l’importanza che le porte di piano e di cabina hanno nel garantire la sicurezza complessiva degli ascensori. By introducing the EN 81-20 and EN 81-50 the European legislation emphasized the importance of landing and car doors in overall lift safety. tors, this is where European provision are introduced for the first time. In fact, Ministerial Decree 587/87 introduces the Euro- pean standard EN 81-1 (while Presidential Decree 268/94 introduces the standard EN 81-2) which, like all following editions up to EN 81-20 and EN 81-50, devotes the whole chapter 7 to landing doors, while car doors are dealt with in chapter 8 dedicated to the car, in particular paragraph 8.6. With EN 81-1 and EN 81-2 there is a high level of regula- tion (even if it is known that harmonized standards are not to be considered as mandatory). The most important changes concern the required cabin doors in all lifts (please note that from Ministerial Decree 587/87 onwards the principle of Lift Categories A, B, etc. is out-of-date as the Lift Directive will make the completely closed car mandatory), the fact that the doors must be blind (gates and perforated doors will no longer be allowed except for freight elevators doors), a gap equal to or under 6 mm between the panels or between the panels and the uprights, the lintel or the threshold (a measure that can reach 10 mm due to wear). Mechanical resistance is addressed very thor- oughly, considering the application of a static force of 300 N, perpendicular to the door, at any point from the inside of the cabin to the outside, evenly distributed over a 5 cm 2 round or square surface. Glass door panels must be installed so that the forces expect- ed by the standard, when applied, are transferred without damaging the glass. For doors with glass larger than estab- lished for the glass windows (width of the window: mini- mum 60 mm, maximum 150 mm; the lower part of the win- dow whose width exceeds 80 mm must be at least 1 m from the floor) laminated glass must be used and in addition the doors must withstand the pendulum impact tests described in Appendix J, checking that after the tests the safety func- tion of the doors is unchanged. The upper fastening elements of the glass in the doors are established to be such that the glass cannot detach from the fastening, even in case of lowering. On the subject of glass doors, a mandatory trademark is established with the following information: a) name of the supplier and trademark; b) type of glass; c) thickness (for example 8 / 0.76 / 8 mm). An entire paragraph is devoted to the danger of children’s hands being dragged in the case of horizontally automatic sliding doors containing glass panels larger than those relat- ing to the glass lights, and there is great focus on protection during door opening and closing. As revealed by the statisti- cal data of user injuries, the post-collision reopening device and the determination of a maximum kinetic energy during closing will not prove fully sufficient to limit injuries to users during cabin entry and exit. Meanwhile, we are witnessing the arrival of the Lift Direc- tive (the first edition is 95/16/EC) introduced in Italy with Presidential Decree 162/99. The EN 81-1 and EN 81-2 standards are updated, includ- ing the introduction of three amendments, but the regula- tory system relating to landing and car doors is mostly un- changed. An innovation in the European regulatory landscape comes with the harmonization of the EN 81-58 standard (the first edition is from 2003) entitled “Safety rules for the construc- tion and installation of lifts - Controls and tests - Part 58: Tests fire resistance for landing doors”. The standard, as seen from the title, indicates a test method to determine the fire resistance of landing doors that may be exposed to fire on the access side. So as not to dwell on burdensome details, let’s address EN 81-20 and EN 81-50. To report the most important innovations introduced with respect to EN 81-1 and EN-2, let’s start from the beginning of the former chapter 7. From the generic phrase “Doors and their frames must be built in such a way that their non-deformability is ensured over time. For this reason it is advisable to use metal doors” to the more specific statement “Components must be built with materials that maintain their resistance over the ex- pected life time subject to environmental conditions.” As can be seen, in the choice of doors it is also necessary to take into account the environmental conditions that were often underestimated or not considered at all in the past. To further explore the major differences between the EN 81- 1/2 and EN 81-20/50 standards with the help of the tables below, the focus on the resistance of the doors themselves and on the safety devices is highlighted, such as, for exam- ple, photoelectric barriers. The following tables are obvious- ly only an example and do not purport to exhaust the theme of the innovations introduced by EN 81-20/50.