Saint Bonnet de Mure, July 18th, 2024 – Mersen will present its innovative portfolio of products for electrified trains, subways, urban railways and buses at InnoTrans 2024 in Berlin. In addition to high-temperature bus bars and high-performance cooling solutions for power electronic modules, Mersen will also demonstrate a digital monitoring system for current collectors used in subways and metros. This solution helps reduce the wear incurred by the current collector and the collector shoe and allows the industry to run vehicles with enhanced efficiency, reliability and safety. The digital current collector can also serve as a tool for ensuring climate-friendly public transportation.
D-CCD: an efficiency boosting solution
Mersen’s digital current collector device, D-CCD, monitors the quality of the current supply between railway current collectors and the third rail. A patented sensor technology, in combination with on-board electronic modules, processes the signals, stores the data and provides wireless communication. The measured variables are:
- the temperature rise in the current collector (for example if one collector of the car is off),
- the real time force applied on the 3rd rail by the shoe (N),
- the real time chocks and vibrations applied to the current collector during its course.
The conditional-based maintenance system of the subway operator can then analyze the collected data in real time. The information allows to establish if the shoe is still operational or will have to be replaced shortly and shows the quality of the third rail. This considerably reduces wear on current collectors and collector shoes. “Our D-CCD can substantially improve the availability and overall operating expenses,” says Olivier Dosda, Design Office Manager at Mersen. With this development, Mersen aims to eventually arrive at predictive maintenance including plannable maintenance intervals, which will allow its customers to operate their trains with improved reliability and reduced downtime.
In addition to this digital innovative solution, Mersen products include contact strips of carbon or metal-coated carbon for overhead pantograph current collectors, carbon brushes and brush holders for traction motors and AC generators, as well as earth return current units (ERCUs), which are essential components in electric locomotives.
Efficient cooling of power electronic modules with ECS LV100 MAXX vacuum brazed cold plate
Power electronics requirements in buses and trains are constantly increasing, while the modules themselves are becoming ever more compact. The ECS LV100 MAXX vacuum brazed cold plate from Mersen is the optimal solution for efficient cooling of these electronic modules (Si and SiC LV100). No conventional cooling system can achieve the thermal conductivity and homogeneity of the ECS LV100 MAXX, and the pressure loss has also been optimized compared to existing cooling solutions of other manufacturers. The compact modular design of the ECS LV100 MAXX vacuum brazed cold plate allows the parallel installation of multiple cooling solutions, which saves valuable installation space.
For high-performance drives: the high-temperature MHi-T bus bar
Manufacturers of electrified rail vehicles and buses are increasingly using wide band gap semiconductors (WBGs) to increase power density in their drives and converters. Using conventional bus bars, however, the heat generated in the WBGs can cause partial or complete failure of the insulation bond starting at a temperature of 105 °C. That is why Mersen developed the MHi-T bus bar, a combination of a range of polymer films as the insulating dielectric and a high-temperature adhesive. MHi-T bus bars can easily withstand operating temperatures between 130 °C and 180 °C, which allows vehicle manufacturers to design high-performance electric drives.
For e-mobility and battery energy storage applications: Infini-Cell Battery Assembly Solutions
As e-mobility and battery energy storage applications grow in number and power density, designers are always looking to reduce the footprint of the battery assemblies without compromising the efficiency or modularity of their power systems. The Infini-Cell laser bonded interface guarantees a high speed, safe, robust and efficient connection of the battery cells to the laminated bus bar. The bus bar is also a “smart” bus bar meaning that it not only powers the battery cells but also monitors temperature and voltage of battery cells as needed.
Visit Mersen from 24th until 27th September 2024 at InnoTrans 2024 in Hall 9, Booth 220.
