This Standard was prepared by the Joint Standards Australia/Standards New Zealand Committee MS-011, Classification of Hazardous Areas, with the assistance of the Joint Subcommittee MS-011-01, Combustible Dusts, to supersede AS/NZS 4745:2004.

This Standard incorporates Amendment No. 1 (June 2013). The changes required by the Amendment are indicated in the text by a marginal bar and amendment number against the clause, note, table, figure or part thereof affected.

This Standard is intended to assist those industries which may have risks associated with the presence of combustible dusts as part of their process, in minimizing the risk of injury, death or loss of property to fire and/or explosion. It sets out good design and management principles and practices for the construction, operation and maintenance of manufacturing and processing plants and associated transportation and storage systems.

The objective of this revision is to update the referenced documents and bring the Standard into line with current editorial practices. This revision also modifies the classification for levels of protection in Section 7 to align with the classifications used in referenced Standards.

The technical content of this Standard is based on but not equivalent to EN 1127-1, Explosive Atmospheres—Explosion-prevention and Protection, Part 1: Basic Concepts and Methodology.

The term ‘informative’ has been used in this Standard to define the application of the appendix to which it applies. An ‘informative’ appendix is only for information and guidance.