In the field of Electrical Engineering and beyond, one of the major bottlenecks of failure of electrical systems is the electrical insulation of wires and cables. This insulation is critical for safety and correct operation but on the other hand is one of the main sources of failure. This is super important in safety-critical applications such as that in the transport industry, especially in Aerospace.
Today鈥檚 efforts towards higher degrees of electrification of transport indicates the need to use higher voltages and power ratings, however this also increases the risk of electrical breakdown of the insulation. Therefore, to make these higher voltage systems available for the aircraft industry, then reliable devices that can monitor, diagnose and predict the health of the electrical components, i.e. of their electrical insulation is required. The long term aim is therefore to develop and commercially offer new monitoring systems, rated for high voltage, high power operation to meet the operational requirements and standards of aerospace applications.
Within the FUSION framework, the AIMS1 project (REP-2022-023) looked at the scientific processes required to enable the above-mentioned, proposed monitoring systems. Thus, the innovative concept of diagnostic markers that are able to allow the user to predict the remaining number of cycles to failure of a particular wire was proposed, modelled and experimentally validated. The focus here was on magnet wire, such as used for electrical motors and drives, as shown in the figure.
The main outcome of the AIMS1 project is that it has shown how new and advanced methodologies for monitoring and predicting health of insulation can be achieved. AIMS1 has therefore resulted in:
- 1) An initial representative model of the proposed monitoring device and
- 2) An initial database of relative diagnostic markers. This project has also resulted in three IEEE journal articles and two IEEE-sponsored conference publications.
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