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• • • SAFETY IN ENGINEERING • • •


Effective remote thermal management of electrical systems


By Fabrizio Vitali, business development manager Europe of automation, Omron Electronic Components Europe


status to be fully and constantly monitored. An abnormal increase in temperature is frequently an early indication of a fault condition and needs to be addressed before the system is damaged or worse still, combusts. Increases can take the form of individual ‘hot spots’ where parts of a panel or individual components are operating close to or above a safe temperature and rises in the ambient temperature. The first can be due to a fault condition, such as a short circuit, or by a component such as a transformer running at peak load for lengthy periods. The second can be caused by the operating environment (prolonged exposure to intense sunlight), or a failure of cooling components such as fans. Both are a threat.


T MAINTENANCE BY IOT


The goal of maintenance over the Internet of Things (IoT) is always to ensure “zero down time” and


40 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • MARCH 2021


o operate reliably and safely in remote locations, industrial automation systems and other electrical installations need their thermal


eliminate unforeseen device failures that can lead to serious accidents or unplanned facility stops. To achieve this, the temperature of every panel


in a plant as well as the surrounding ambient temperature needs to be monitored continuously using appropriate sensor solutions. Real-time remote monitoring in this way ensures that the need for site visits is kept to an absolute minimum. Sometimes the fault can be rectified remotely, perhaps by reducing power demand from the system to allow key components to cool. Other times an engineer site visit is needed, for example to replace a faulty component or to repair a short circuit.


Monitoring of the temperature of the whole cabinet in which the system is housed is essential but by itself clearly insufficient: a component can be running dangerously hot and be in danger of meltdown or combustion without affecting the overall temperature of the system. On the other hand, attaching an individual temperature sensor to each electrical component is completely impractical – a wiring loom for example can develop hotspots almost anywhere. New wide-


angle thermal image sensors that can detect hotspots in large areas of a system such as a whole panel, provide a great starting point for the truly effective remote thermal management of electrical systems. Complemented by ambient temperature sensors and air velocity sensors to verify the correct operation of cooling fans, they can provide a complete IoT based thermal monitoring and remote maintenance solution.


WIDE ANGLE THERMAL SENSORS


New infrared thermal sensors with a wide viewing angle in a compact body highlight hotspots anywhere in their field of view, filling the gap between taking an ‘average’ value of the temperature of the whole system and taking a reading of the temperature at one or two selected points.


Omron D6T MEMS thermal (IR) sensors measure the surface temperature of objects without touching them using a thermopile element that absorbs radiated energy from the target object.


electricalengieneeringmagazine.co.uk


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