Editor’s choice
source of knowledge, often yielding surprising insights. Take, for instance, ABB’s research into elevator drive systems. It found that units operating intermittently, such as those used in executive or maintenance lifts, can deteriorate faster than units running continuously. The culprit is not overuse, but thermal fluctuation. Equipment in constant use reaches a steady operating temperature, while idle systems repeatedly heat up and cool down, accelerating material fatigue.
Insights like these reveal that reliability in the real world is far more complex than simply
counting hours of use. True durability depends on understanding the complex interactions among thermal, electrical, and mechanical stresses throughout a system’s full lifecycle.
ADVANCING RELIABILITY, DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY
At ABB, reliability and sustainability go hand in hand. By extending the operational life of drives and motors through a deeper understanding of how and why components age, we help our customers achieve both environmental and
economic gains. Longerlasting equipment means fewer replacements, less material waste, and a smaller carbon footprint, all while improving uptime and energy efficiency.
But the real innovation lies in our willingness to learn from failure. Every component pushed to its limit in the lab provides valuable data, and every data point informs a better, safer, more durable design. These insights ripple across industries, helping customers in manufacturing, energy, transportation, and beyond operate with greater confidence and resilience.
For businesses where even one motor or drive failure can bring operations to a standstill, our scienceled approach offers a measurable advantage. Studying the “physics of failure” is not about predicting faults; it is about designing them out, ensuring that the technologies driving modern industry continue to perform reliably, sustainably, and without interruption.
ABB has made studying the physics of failure its speciality.
ABB Instrumentation Monthly January 2026
www.abb.com 15
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