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This paper concerns the study of contact opening under dc voltage in the case of high-intensity current (a few hundred amperes). The application fields are mainly automotive and aeronautical systems. An experimental device has been designed in order to study the opening of contacts under various conditions. The influence of several parameters on contact opening is studied. These are the following: the opening velocity, the current intensity through the closed contact, the nature of the contact materials (Ag, Ag-12wt%SnO 2 ), the value of the inductance in the electrical circuit. The measured parameters characterizing the opening phase are as follows: the arc duration, the value of the electrode gap when the arc extinguishes, the arc energy, the maximal value of the contact voltage during the opening phase, and the electrode erosion. The study of the erosion is achieved with the help of a 3-D profilometer enabling the measurement of mass transfer and, for instance, of the amount of molten or evaporated metal.Index Terms-Electric arc, electrical contacts, erosion, hybrid vehicle, 36-V dc.

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This paper shares with the aerospace community a case study of turboprop mild hybridisation using a recently developed integrated drive system in the University of Nottingham, UK, within the ACHIEVE project under EU H2020 CleanSky 2 program (project No. 737814). The developed drive system enables green taxiing of a turboprop aircraft while on the ground with its engine off, and as an electrical generator when the turboprop is in the air. The entire system is designed to be able to integrate within the power auxiliary gear box (PAGB) of a turboprop aircraft. Some of the key features of the developed system include a high-speed permanent magnet machine (up to 14,200rpm) with dual three-phase design, SiC-based high power density (11.8kW/L for the power converter, 35.3kW/L and 7.2kW/kg for the machine active parts), integrated cooling design for high-temperature operation (>130º C ambient temperature), fault tolerance consideration with dual channel operation capabilities and sensorless control for entire operational conditions. This paper is giving an overview of the design process of the electrical machine, power converters, and its cooling of the entire drive. Numerical analysis (FEM and CFD) and some experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and the desired performance of the developed integrated drive system.

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