This part of IEC 60519 specifies safety requirements for industrial electroheating equipment
and installations in which infrared radiation – usually generated by infrared emitters – is
significantly dominating over heat convection or heat conduction as means of energy transfer
to the workload. A further limitation of the scope is that the infrared emitters have a maximum
spectral emission at longer wavelengths than 780 nm in air or vacuum, and are emitting
wideband continuous spectra such as by thermal radiation or high pressure arcs.
IEC 60519-1:2015 defines infrared as radiation within the frequency range between 400 THz
and 300 GHz. This corresponds to a wavelength range between 780 nm and 10 µm in
vacuum. Industrial infrared heating commonly uses thermal infrared sources with rated
temperatures between 500 °C and 3 000 °C; the emitted radiation from these sources
dominates in the wavelength range between 780 nm and 10 µm.
Since substantial emission of thermal emitters can extend either to wavelengths below
780 nm or above 3 000 nm, the safety aspects of emitted visible light and emission at
wavelengths longer than 3 000 nm are also considered in this document.
This standard is not applicable to:
• infrared installations with lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as main sources – they are
covered by IEC 62471:2006 and IEC 60825-1:2014;
• appliances for use by the general public;
• appliances for laboratory use – they are covered by IEC 61010-1:2010;
• electroheating installations where resistance heated bare wires, tubes or bars are used as
heating elements, and infrared radiation is not a dominant side effect of the intended use,
covered by IEC 60519-2:2006;
• infrared heating equipment with a nominal combined electrical power of the infrared
emitters of less than 250 W;
• handheld infrared equipment.
Industrial infrared electroheating equipment under the scope of this standard typically uses
the Joule effect for the conversion of electric energy into infrared radiation by one or several
sources. Radiation is then emitted from one or several elements onto the material to be
treated. Such infrared heating elements are in particular:
• thermal infrared emitters in the form of tubular, plate-like or otherwise shaped ceramics
with a resistive element inside;
• infrared quartz glass tube or halogen lamp emitters with a hot filament as a source;
• non insulated elements made from molybdenum disilicide, silicon carbide, graphite, ironchromium-
aluminium alloys, refractory metals or comparable materials;
• wide-spectrum arc lamps.