The hottest railway burning and China's electricit

Railway heating and China's electricity sensor market

the tide of hot rare earth new materials in China's railway construction has brought a once-in-a-lifetime development opportunity to semiconductor and component manufacturers. In addition to major core device suppliers such as DSP and power electronic devices, electricity sensor manufacturers have also benefited a lot from it

"LEM group (LEM) is the leader in the global electricity sensor industry. We have a share of more than 60% in the global railway electricity sensor market, and have maintained a long-term partnership with major global railway locomotive host manufacturers." At the modern railway exhibition held in Shanghai not long ago, Zhang Zonghui, general manager of sales of Beijing Lyme Electronics Co., Ltd., said

Lyme group, headquartered in Geneva, was founded in 1972. At first, this company mainly focused on Hall current sensors and took the lead in applying them to trams in Switzerland. With the continuous expansion of its business, it has gradually developed non Hall sensors such as Hall voltage sensors and optocoupler sensors. At the same time, its business has also expanded to four major markets: industry, railway, energy and automation, automobile and so on. In 1989, the group established Beijing Lyme Electronics Co., Ltd. In the past 16 years, thanks to the rapid development of the Chinese market and its business in China, China has become one of the most important regional markets of Lyme group, especially in the Chinese railway electricity sensor market

"as one of the four major application markets of electric quantity sensors, the promotion of electric quantity sensors in the railway field is mainly reflected in three aspects," Zhang Zonghui said, "First of all, during driving and energy control, it is necessary to provide control and protection signals, adjust motor capacity, air conditioning, heater, lighting, electric door, ventilation device and other auxiliary functions to the rectifier or inverter on the locomotive to ensure the normal operation of these power electronic devices. Secondly, in addition to the locomotive itself, the railway station substations along the railway also need various control and protection signals. In addition, with the railway operation With the continuous progress of the industry, some new fields have been developed, such as energy consumption management on locomotives, road and station equipment, railway maintenance, switching device management, etc., which are the use of various new electric quantity sensors. "

different from other industries, due to the particularity of its application, the requirements of the railway industry for electric quantity sensor products also reflect different characteristics. "First of all, it works when the train is moving, and the safety requirements are very high. Second, because the load capacity of the railway locomotive is relatively large, the power required is also relatively large." Zhangzonghui said,

"Thirdly, the combination will revolutionize the replacement of traditional thermal insulation materials and various power electronic equipment. The operating environment of the electric quantity sensor is complex and dynamic; fourth, due to the changing surrounding environment, the electric quantity sensor must have good enough characteristics in terms of electromagnetic compatibility; fifth, it must be able to endure all kinds of bad weather such as severe cold and heat. For example, the railway industry requires that accessories must be able to work between -45~80 ℃; sixth, When the train runs at high speed, it will produce various current and voltage harmonics, which also puts forward higher requirements for the filtering ability of the electric quantity sensor. Finally, with the continuous development of technology, many new requirements are still emerging. "

indeed. Taking the Beijing Shanghai high-speed railway as an example, Zhang Zonghui pointed out that since the speed of the traction system is as high as 300 kilometers per hour, the electric quantity sensor used in it must have excellent linearity, fast response time and sufficient accuracy. In addition, one of the most basic and growing challenges is that the concept of "mean time between failure" of railway system company since it established a cooperative relationship with Shanghai Silicate Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2014 also puts forward high expectations for the robustness of electric quantity sensors

the above special requirements make the electricity sensor suppliers have to undergo various strict certifications to enter the railway market. Just as it must pass the TS16949 certification to enter the automotive application, although there is not enough authority at present, iris, initiated by the European Union of railway industry (unief) and developed by eight enterprises including Bombardier, Siemens, Alstom, Knorr and four railway component suppliers, has become a global standard for entering the railway industry

Zhang Zonghui said that since the relevant departments in China have always agreed with the European standards, as soon as the iris standard was introduced, CSR and CNR under the Ministry of Railways began to promote iris certification in their enterprises. Due to the close cooperation with major global manufacturers, especially the four major European OEMs, Lyme Geneva production center also became the 12th European company certified by iris in 2007. In 2008, the production center in Beijing successfully passed this certification, becoming the third company in China to pass this standard

zhangzonghui said that the electricity used on all the "harmony" locomotives in operation at present. This summit was hosted by the Nanjing Municipal People's government, and the quantity sensors basically came from Lyme. In addition, the relevant products of the company are also widely used in other rail transit facilities such as high-speed passenger transport, freight transport, light rail and subway. Facing the trend that the global manufacturing industry continues to shift to China in depth, the company has also actively adjusted its strategy. As early as five years ago, it has established Beijing Lyme as the most important global production base of the future group for global supply. At present, a considerable number of products supplied to the domestic market have been localized, which has directly brought benefits to users due to the reduction of costs

in addition to the production base, Lyme has also set up the world's third largest R & D center in Beijing, except Geneva headquarters and Machida, Japan. Zhang Zonghui said that at first, the main work of the center was to provide customized services for Chinese customers, but now there are new plans: 1 Improve technical ability and undertake large-scale international R & D projects; 2. Become a global R & D center to serve global customers; 3. Attract experts in various fields and keep pace with foreign technology; 4. Import IPD R & D process. In addition, in order to improve the cost performance of products, Beijing Lyme has also introduced circuit sensors with integrated ASIC technology. "ASIC has many advantages, such as small size, good consistency, and much lower defect rate than discrete devices." Zhang Zonghui said, "however, the requirements for design capability and chip technology are also relatively high, especially considering the cost factor, there must be a quantitative guarantee."