Enclosure

An electrical enclosure is a housing for electrical or electronic equipment.  Its purpose is to protect that equipment from the environment (especially in the case of external electrical enclosures) and also to protect people from the equipment (e.g. to prevent electric shock or the propagation of an explosion).

There is a harmonised European standard that specifies the different aspects of an enclosure’s performance and how it should be categorised – at least for low voltage applications.