This document specifies safety requirements, and measures for their verification, for the design and construction of portable, hand-held, powered brush-cutters and grass-trimmers with a backpack-mounted combustion engine power source and mechanical power transmission between the power source and the cutting attachment (hereafter referred to as “machine”). Methods for the elimination or reduction of hazards arising from the use of these machines and the type of information on safe working practices to be provided by the manufacturer are specified.

This document, taken together with the relevant clauses of ISO 11806-1:2021 (see 4.1), deals with all significant hazards, hazardous situations and hazardous events, with the exception of whole-body vibration from the backpack power unit, relevant to these machines when they are used as intended and under conditions of misuse which are reasonably foreseeable by the manufacturer.

NOTE 1    A standardized test procedure for measuring whole-body vibration from the backpack power unit is not available at the time of publication.

NOTE 2    See Annex A, together with ISO 11806-1:2021, Annex A, for a list of significant hazards.

This document is applicable to portable, hand-held, powered brush-cutters and grass-trimmers manufactured after its date of publication.

This document is not applicable to machines equipped with metallic cutting attachments consisting of more than one piece, such as pivoting chains or flail blades.