Excellent EMC for the European Hyperloop Week

From July 18 to 24, 2022, 25 Hyperloop teams from all over Europe will be giving their all in the Dutch city of Delft. And even though the pods will be compared and evaluated in various categories, the European Hyperloop Week should primarily be considered a platform for dialog rather than a competition. This is underlined by the numerous opportunities for delegates to exchange thoughts and ideas with representatives from the industry and the public. “Indeed, we want to get the hyperloop technology closer to reality and create a dialog between industry and science,” adds Lukas von Briel, Electrical Engineer in the Swissloop Team, responsible for designing the inverter.

The Swissloop Team has already made it onto the winner’s podium of the Hyperloop Pod Competition on two previous occasions, which SpaceX sponsored, the company headed up by Elon Musk. In 2021, the team took home first prize in Valencia.

TDK provides the following for the Swissloop Pod: extremely compact DC-link film capacitors with excellent electrical power for the inverter and inductors to maintain electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). Even when it came to choosing and designing TDK common-mode filters and protective components, the engineers consulted TDK’s business groups. As contactors the team decided to use the HVC43 series, which features a hermetically-sealed, gas-filled, ceramic arc chamber that offers excellent extinguishing properties designed to quickly shut down high direct currents of the batteries in the pod. Expertise was certainly gathered here before the competition kicked off.

This year's special focus was on technical EMC consulting to design the inverter and printed circuit boards. The TDK site European Research & Development Center Munich (R&D Center Europe), was on hand to offer assistance and advice, offered their expertise with the design and structural approach, and provided the team with some thought-provoking ideas. The specific points were proper shielding, the benefits of neutral grounding, an optimized printed circuit board concept, and general control of transistors.

TDK believes that promoting education, particularly in the fields of technology and engineering, needs to be an essential part of its mission as a company. The collaboration between the different product marketing departments, the R&D Center Europe, and the Swissloop Team has called for this kind of dialog to enable us to launch our products.