When the Going Gets Tough, High-Reliability is Needed
Welcome to the September edition of Power Systems Design. It is hard to believe we are now three-quarters through the year. In this edition of the magazine, we look at military, aerospace and high-reliability electronics. To an extent, these are the industries that kept electronics alive in the west until the recent trend of onshoring happened. Military and aerospace especially have to be located in the home country due to national security. High-reliability designs also tended to be manufactured close to home as they were low volume and high margin, and the reliability of far eastern production was questionable, at least in the beginning. Also controlling the manufacture of complex designs with language difficulties was not the easiest. Thankfully, it kept the skills alive that our countries need for the re-industrialisation that appears to be happening now.
The first article in the Special Report this month was contributed by Mersen and it focusses on high-reliability. The company has designed a new type of fuse intended to protect equipment in the growing number of DC applications. The new fuse can be reset as easily as today’s AC fuses, while being compact and light enough to be used in new emerging DC applications, such as energy distributions systems, storage systems and EV charging.
Testing of ‘more electric aircraft’ (MEA) is the subject of the second article in the Special Report. Submitted by TDK Lambda, the article explains the trend of electrifying aircraft systems to build lighter, more efficient aircraft with additional functionality. These new systems rely on ±400 VDC and 230 VAC power distribution networks, which have to be tested to ensure power quality and operational effectiveness. TDK Lambda has introduced a new series of programmable power supplies that allow engineers to perform tests efficiently and repeatable to enhance testing operations. The article describes the benefits of the new supplies.
The third and final article in the special Report this month comes from Würth Elektronik. Supercacitors are becoming a popular component for use in high-reliability operations, and as such, it is essential to understand how they deteriorate over time. Würth has developed a new degradation model that can be used to estimate their service life. The article describes the factors that affect supercacitor longevity, and the accuracy of the new model. The understanding of ageing is essential for every component used in high-reliability systems to plan for maintenance. It also helps cut the costs for designs, by stopping the designer needing to overspecify products by large amounts to be safe.
As well as the features in this month’s Special Report, the magazine also has general interest articles in our Tech Focus section, as well as the latest news and views from the industry.
Best Regards
Ally Winning
European Editor, PSD
