UK: TE Connectivity has opened a Rail High Voltage Test Centre in Swindon which can simulate the electrical, mechanical, thermal, environmental and multi-stress conditions experienced by roof-mounted electrical equipment on rolling stock. The facility includes an impulse generator capable of delivering up to 300 kV.
‘The majority of TE’s rolling stock products are tailored to suit specific customer requirements and specifications, so testing is a critical aspect of the design and development process’, said General Manager, Rail, Al Ghelani. Most of the testing was previously carried out at external facilities, which involved long delays, and produced pass or fail results which could not be fed back into an iterative development process.
‘Our new test centre provides all the capabilities we need in-house, with the key benefit that we can reduce the time to market by around 30% as well as provide a faster response to customer needs’, added Ghelani.
