[SystemSafety] Solar Storms and Charging Procedures for Electric Cars

Peter Bernard Ladkin ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de
Thu Apr 11 14:15:50 CEST 2013


Martyn,

On 10 Apr 2013, at 16:30, Martyn Thomas <martyn at thomas-associates.co.uk> wrote:

> On 10/04/2013 10:57, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:
>> 
>> ...I wouldn't know whether GICs would be a concern with an active charging system. Can anyone help?
> 
> My understanding is that you need a long run of conductor before GIC's become significant, except around transformers that have a major magnetic field of their own that interacts with the earth's magnetic field.

Thanks!

>> 
>> I do know somewhat more about SEPs.....
>> 
>> The SEP increase raises the question of an increase in quantity, and diversity, of SEUs, since the spectrum of SEPs in a solar storm is not well understood, according to the report. .....
> 
> As weight is a lesser problem than in aircraft, perhaps chargers and RCDs could be adequately screened or duplicated.

My first thought on that is: difficult. For two reasons. One is that if you don't know the spectrum of both types of particles and of their energies then you don't know what to protect against, and effective protection has a very varied nature. Protons do Si-based semiconductors in, but a thinnish metal hull protects well. Whereas with atmospheric neutrons it takes a couple meters of water. At least some people in the avionics community have argued that SEUs in commercial aircraft at cruise are likely mainly to be neutrons (that was the suggestion that raised the scepticism of my particle-physicist colleagues). The second reason is that weight may not be a concern but pennies are: component manufacturers connected with the automobile industry are very, very sensitive to price. 

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, University of Bielefeld and Causalis Limited


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