New technologies for electric transport

Now, you won’t have to guess about the need to repair the battery yourself, the color-changing dye will warn you about this.

Although electric motors are much more durable than internal combustion engines, they also fail over time. As scientists from the German Halle-Wittenberg University named after Martin Luther have established, it is possible to identify the approximation of breakage using a special dye.

One of the main components of an electric motor is winding, tightly packed rings of copper wire coated with an electrically insulating resin. Due to the heat that accompanies the operation of the motor and other factors, the insulation becomes brittle, cracks, and collapses. This leads to a short circuit between the turns of the winding and, accordingly, to a failure of the unit.

This malfunction usually comes as a surprise, as there are no standard simple ways to determine the degree of resin degradation. A solution to this problem is proposed in a new work by German scientists, carried out with the participation of the manufacturer of insulation materials Elantas.

The researchers found that all four of the most commonly used types of electrical insulating resins release alcohol when heated. Its appearance can be monitored visually by adding a dye to the material that reacts with alcohol compounds but does not affect the properties of the resin.

Having experimentally tested several options, the research group opted for a substance that glows reddish-yellow in pure ultraviolet radiation and turns green when interacting with alcohol. Moreover, the intensity of the color change makes it possible to judge the amount of the resin decomposition product that has entered into the reaction.

The use of insulation containing a dye will help to easily identify its critical condition. Among other things, it is assumed that monitoring will be carried out automatically using compact optical sensors built into the electric motor. When they detect a change in the color of the insulating material, indicating serious resin degradation, the driver will be warned to visit the service.

Such a system will protect against breakdowns on the way associated with a short circuit of the motor winding and will allow replacing the electric motors only when they run out of service.

So now riding and using eMoped will become even easier and more convenient.