As equipment manufacturers continue to increase their span across the globe, inevitably the challenges they face increase also. One factor often overlooked in this is the impact of different climate control on an install base. How can manufacturers ensure that machines and so control panels destined for varying climates perform to their best capability? How we house equipment and manage their thermal environment requires careful consideration?
The Impact of Climate control on reliability of Installations
Inefficient sizing of enclosures and their subsequent Climate control can lead to malfunctions across continuous processes and reduced performance of components. Imagine, an outdoor enclosure for a machine in the middle east exposed to temperatures of 40C +, where components are cooled by a single fan running far beyond its own capacity. The same component set up could then be destined for Scandinavia, with winter lows well beyond freezing. Neither enclosure has been accurately sized for their destined environment and, inevitably, the performance of the components will begin to fail.
Breakdowns can incur costly shutdown for End Users before considering repair cost of installations. An optimal climate control solution can not only pre-empt costly downtime but ensure the efficiency of the control panel.
Key Guidelines
To best fit of the thermal solution needs an insight into a number of parameters, including:
- Whether the installation is indoors or outdoors
- The type of environment which will result in choosing the right IP
- Ambient temperature and humidity (T, RH)
- Knowledge of power dissipation in the installation (W)
Zoom on the Importance analyzing the Environment
The Analysis of the Air quality in the Installation area of the control Panel is essential to identify the constraints to which the electrical and electronic devices will be exposed. The outcome of this analysis will results in choosing the right IP of the Enclosures and its climate control. Imagine, a site with dusty Atmosphere such as Ceramic Plant or site with presence of oils or solvents such as automotive workshops, even though the Thermal calculation and heat balance will result in choosing a fan, the constraint from the air quality requires an installation of an air and air exchanger or cooling Unit instead, to ensure a complete separation between the Electrical devices and the polluted atmosphere .
Tools to size climate control
Having in mind the constraint from the environment, a thermal calculation and heat balance can be done by Proclima FREE software to ensure sizing accurately thermal solutions. Manufacturers can then house components in Enclosures with the optimal Climate control solution for the destined environment.
Despite often overlooked, when it comes to thermal solutions assuming a ‘one size fits all’ approach misses a crucial opportunity for equipment manufacturers to add value to their customer base, operating across every type of environment. Robust tools to design an accurate thermal management solution is more accessible than ever before, offering a simple yet effective answer to reducing downtime and increasing components efficiency.
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Steps to Size Climate control for your Enclosures
- Set up the type of the installation; Indoor or Outdoor
- Include the information about the Enclosures, Materials and sizes
- Set up the Ambient Temperature and Humidity; for outdoor Installation, Proclima Software provides a Weathering Database with 3 years worth of Humidity, temperature and Sun Radiation Data that can be used as input for your thermal calculation.
- Set up the Power dissipation values, Proclima Soft provides information about the Power dissipation of a large list of Electrical components, so you would be able to build up the Power dissipation based on the Bill of Materials.
- Process the data with Proclima Software and get an optimal thermal Management Solution for your Control Panel.
Download Proclima FREE Software here