New test bay for E-mobility components

At KEMA LABS in Berlin (IPH), on April 15 ^th , the commissioning of the new laboratory for testing automotive components has been completed. The brand-new design has been conceived for meeting the requirements of e-mobility market . Well-known automotive OEMs indeed increasingly asked for facilities equipped with surge current generators to test DC switch elements like contactors, pyro – switches and fuses , with high current and most important very small inductance .

The new system consists of 14 control cabinets with bidirectional DC power supply for charging and discharging the device under test up to a maximum of 1500 VDC , a capacitor bank up to 2 F to provide the necessary energy for a “shot”, an impulse generator, resistances and safety systems to set the current up to 3 5 kA .

The unicity of this system is exactly the capability to providehigh current (35 kA) at constant voltage ( 1500 VDC ) for several milliseconds with an inductance < 10 µH .

Furthermore, to ensure tests under severe environmental conditions, the test object can be placed within an explosion-proof climatic chamber.

This new test system allows to switch the full current “on” and “off” several times without completely discharging the capacitor bank; in case the test object fails the circuit absorbs the entire energy of the capacitor bank without risks.

Since at present there is no product standard for switchgears in electric cars, the requirements that our relevant customers brought to us were decisive for the design and layout of the test bay.

Maximum test voltage:                       1 500 VDC

Maximum test current:                       35 000 A

Minimum test-circuit inductance:       < 10 µH