ABB’s new generation ACS880LC drives with 100% liquid cooling technology deliver key advantages in protection, reliability, and footprint size for many industries. In addition to the marine sector where they are already widely used successfully, these positive features mean the LC drives are also being adopted to an increasing extent in many other industries such as pulp & paper, mining, tunnel boring, oil & gas and automotive/aerospace test bench applications.
Industrial processes often involve corrosive, dirty, hot, or cramped conditions that are extremely harsh on the equipment. A very good example of such conditions is in the marine shipping sector, where limited space, wet corrosive air, and wide temperature ranges subject assets such as drives to tough beatings.
To reduce both the space requirements and the damage that drives must endure on shipping vessels, ABB’s new generation ACS880LC drive was developed with high-efficiency 100% liquid cooling – keeping the drive modules perfectly cool in a totally enclosed cabinet with no external air ventilation needed. The new ACS880LC is based on the successful earlier-generation ACS800LC drive, thousands of which have been used in the marine sector, as well as for specific applications in pulp & paper, mining, tunnel boring and oil & gas.
For maritime vessels, the liquid-cooled design has become a top choice among ship designers for such applications as controlling propulsion, thrusters, cranes, and winches. In mining, it has been applied to mobile machinery, hoists, elevators and conveyors. And in pulp & paper, it has been widely used in paper machines and packaging equipment, where it delivers high power in a small footprint and as an additional benefit offers the ability to recover excess heat and feed it into the process or local community heating systems.
Tough, compact, powerful . . . and perfect for many other industries
Now, our aim is to make more engineers, designers and system integrators working with even wider applications in the pulp & paper, mining, tunnel boring, and oil & gas industries, as well as test benches for the automotive and aerospace sectors, aware of the advantages the ACS880LC offers.
Reliability, for highest uptime of operations
Maximum uptime means better profitability and the ACS880LC drive is built to give you exactly that. 100% liquid cooling with no air intakes is a perfect solution for dirty operations, eliminating common problems due to corrosion, contamination and filter blockage. This also means longer time between maintenance work. Furthermore, the design allows easy mounting of the liquid cooled modules into third party cabinets and enclosures that have high ingress protection classes or are designed for hazardous areas.
Efficiency, in both heat and space
98% of the heat generated in the liquid cooled drive is dissipated by the liquid coolant, which has a heat-carrying capacity 3,500 times higher than air. This superior heat transfer means the drive is extremely compact, so the user needs 30% less space, or else can get 30% more power on the same footprint. The drive modules can be connected in parallel to achieve very high powers, up to 6000 kW, and the built-in dU/dt filters help make this the most compact drive solution on the market.
A further advantage concerns harmonics, with the drive designed to reduce the harmonics content by 97%. And from a sustainability standpoint, in many process industries like pulp & paper and mining, the recovered heat can be efficiently reused, reducing both the overall cost of primary energy and the CO2 emissions.
Advanced diagnostics save time and trouble
The ultramodern liquid cooled drive also includes advanced diagnostics and temperature monitoring, to further help ensure exceptional reliability and increased uptime. The built-in diagnostics check for potential hot spots, monitoring temperature on all key components and sending alerts when needed, thus helping to protect the equipment before expensive failures occur, and also preventing possible injuries.
Simplicity in design and installation
Liquid cooling simplifies the HVAC design, since all heat is taken out of the electrical room via the cooling liquid, with no need for ventilation. The drives are well suited to both customers looking for engineered turn-key solutions as well as those building their own drive using a third-party cabinet or container. Design and mounting of modules into third-party cabinets is easy with the help of complete installation kits for Rittal VX25 and a generic kit for other cabinets. 3D models of the kits are also available, and the design can be modified to fit specific cabinets. The drive modules are certified by all major marine certification bodies, which greatly helps cabinet builders with their certification process.
Maintenance is easy
The LC drive modules are designed to be easy to maintain and most service operations can be done without disconnecting the cooling pipes. This reduces the service time and the risk of getting contaminants in the cooling system. If a module needs to be replaced, the motor connection is made with quick connectors, eliminating the need to disconnect cabling.
The modularity provides maximum flexibility, since the same modular hardware is used for four different functions: as IGBT supply unit (ISU), as inverter (INU), as a dynamic brake chopper (DBU) and as a DC-DC converter (DDC). This modularity also enables easier and cheaper spare parts handling, as the same hardware/spare parts can be used for all four functions.
Coolant quality avoids bacteria problems and downtime
The liquid coolant material used is commercially available ready-mixed Antifrogen® L, which delivers both maximized performance and high reliability, while avoiding troublesome bacteria growth. This is very important because everything is already included in the ready-made mixture and the user does not have to add anything to the coolant.
If, as other systems often require, glycol must be mixed with tap water and used as the coolant, there is a potential risk that bacteria gets into the system by mistake via the water or unclean mixing and filling equipment, leading to problematic bacteria growth. The strains of bacteria can feed off the glycol as their food source and leave spores which form more live bacterial cells. These are generally facultative anaerobes, meaning they can live with or without oxygen present, and when they multiply, they block the coolant flow and reduce cooling capacity.
Sometimes it is hard or even impossible to find good enough tap water which would fulfil the quality requirements. For example, water quality in Mexico is not the same as Finland, and it is therefore safer and more convenient to use a ready-mixed coolant, which can be directly filled in the drive’s cooling circuit.
ABB’s technology based on sterile Antifrogen® L entirely avoids bacteria problems, and the associated downtime it can cause. To ensure top cleanliness of the drives from the start, already during production ABB puts Antifrogen® L into the drive modules and drive cabinets. The safe coolant remains in the cooling system after production to protect the system until it is commissioned at the final installation site.
Domain expertise, allowing us to use LC advantages in many more applications in more industries
The 100% liquid cooled drive is ABB’s third generation of the liquid cooled drives. We have over 25 years of experience of its use in many different industry segments like marine, pulp & paper, mining, tunnel boring and oil & gas. With even more advantages in our latest generation ACS880LC drive, now may be the perfect time for you to explore the benefits it can give to your applications too.
