Safety factor - Load with sixfold safety factor

The factor of safety is the use of more elements than necessary to compensate for the effects of unknown variables and to prevent system failures.

Design requires dealing with the unknown. Whatever the designer's level of knowledge and the quality of the specifications, hypotheses are inevitable in any design process.

The safety factors are used to offset the potential effects of these unknowns. The idea is to add materials and components to the system so that the design exceeds the specifications defined as necessary to meet the needs.

For example, designing an internet service that can support thousands of users is straightforward and straightforward. However, to take into account unanticipated needs for example downloading large files, the specifications of the need can be multiplied (here in threes).

In this case, the safety factor of three means that the service is qualified as being able to support 1000 users but is designated to actually support 3000.

The level of the safety factor corresponds directly to the level of ignorance of the design parameters. The higher the level of ignorance, the more the safety factor will be increased. More elements mean a higher cost.

The novelties require an important factor of safety. If a design becomes reliable over time, the confidence that the unknowns of the system disappear combined with the pressure to reduce costs causes a process of trimming and reducing the factor of safety.

Unfortunately, this process usually continues until an accident or malfunction occurs.

The safety factor must be used to minimize the risk of design failure. When the level of confidence in the design increases, we can then decrease the coefficient of safety but we must be careful not to go too far.

It is necessary to observe the nominal capacity of a system to make decisions that stress the limits of the system and not the expected capacity.

That is why all our medical arms are certified with a safety factor of 6

for your safety and that of your patients.

Safety factor - Load with sixfold safety factor