Designing Control Panels for Extreme Environments

Your electronics and the electrical enclosures that house them are constantly subjected to a range of hazards. Some come from within, caused by voltage spikes, power surges, and heat. Others come from outside, caused by contaminants in the air or even extreme environments due to adverse weather.

Fortunately, with the right design features, your control panels can withstand these issues and reduce the risk of damage they cause. Discover the importance of control panels designed for extreme environments for your continued operations.

NEMA vs. IP Ratings

NEMA stands for National Electrical Manufacturers Association. It is a standardized rating system used to classify the environmental protection capabilities of electrical equipment and enclosures. This system is used throughout North America.

Ratings range from Level 1 to Level 13, with Level 13 indicating the most robust protection ideal for harsh industrial environments.

IP stands for Ingress Protection, and this rating standard is recognized internationally.  An IP rating contains the letters IP followed by two digits to indicate an enclosure’s level of resistance to external intrusions (dust, moisture, etc).

The first of the two digits, always somewhere between 0-6, indicates the degree of protection from solid objects. The second digit is always somewhere between 0-9 and indicates the degree of protection from moisture.

As with NEMA, the higher the number, the better the protection.

At first, these two rating systems may seem to offer similar information. However, NEMA ratings can also tell you more about the quality of the enclosure’s construction and its corrosion resistance. IP ratings, on the other hand, focus more on how well an enclosure will block out contaminants.

Choosing the Right Enclosure Rating for Industrial Conditions

IP ratings are internationally recognized and are often the better choice for worldwide exporting. However, when purchasing an electrical enclosure for your business in North America, you’ll be more familiar with NEMA ratings.

The truth is, either one will tell you how much protection the enclosure has against outside factors like dust, dirt, moisture, etc. But NEMA ratings give you more information crucial for industrial environments.

For example, a NEMA rating of 3 tells you that the enclosure is rain-tight and you can use them outdoors. NEMA 4X offers protection from corrosion. NEMA 6 means the enclosure can handle brief submersion, while NEMA 7 is explosion-proof.

NEMA enclosure ratings also indicate protection from gases, vapors, and ignitable substances. The rating you choose should align with the conditions the enclosure will endure regularly at your site.

Heat Dissipation Strategies for Control Panels in High-Temperature Environments

Industrial environments can suffer extreme conditions, including extremely high temperatures. That is why heat dissipation is such an important factor in industrial control panels.

Tightly packed electronics in enclosures can produce an enormous ambient heat load behind the enclosure panels. This heat load can reduce the performance of electronics and in time even damage electronics and panels.

Forced ventilation with internal fans and exhausts is an industrial panel cooling strategy ideal for high-density panels when there isn’t enough space for natural ventilation.

A top-mounted exhaust fan can usually pull enough of the hot air out of the enclosure. However, in enclosures with more extreme heat loads, and where better airflow is required, backward-curved plug fans that deliver higher pressure and airflow are best.

Implementing Redundant Power Supplies and Surge Protection

Redundancy is another factor to consider in extreme environment automation. In critical applications, power supply failure is simply not an option. Redundant power supplies ensure that should any equipment suffer a power supply failure, a backup will take over.

This is much like redundant PLC systems[1] , where the backup system is ready to take over should the primary system fail.

Power failures are not the only concern. When power is switched off and back on again with high-powered equipment running, the resultant power surge can cause damage. Malfunctioning electrical devices and damaged wiring can also cause overvoltage situations.

For all their robust design, industrial electronics are still sensitive to power surges from such voltage spikes. This is why surge protection is so crucial for extreme environments. A surge protective device limits overvoltage and reduces it to a safe level to protect electronics and control panels from damage.

Conclusion

Modern industrial control panels can mitigate the hazards of extreme environments. They protect electronics from external forces, facilitate heat dissipation, and include measures for resolving sudden power failures and surges.

However, designing industrial control panels requires expert knowledge of the extreme conditions of industrial applications. It also demands rigorous testing and adherence to industry standards. Always purchase your control panels from an experienced, trusted panel builder.

AEC is a licensed ETL 508A panel building shop. We offer custom panels strong enough, and advanced enough, to handle the most extreme environments. Contact us today to get control panels you can rely on.

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