High Voltage Safety Concepts for Power Electronic Units 2013-01-2877

Incorporation of Personal safety design concepts in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) and Electric Vehicle (EV) application gains precedence due to the use of High Voltage Components and rechargeable energy storage systems (RESS) like Battery, DC-Link Capacitor(Bulk Capacitor to handle the motor current ripples). The Voltage levels above 60V DC/ 30 V AC rms are dangerous to human lives. Sufficient isolation resistance keeps the body currents within safe limits. International standards like SAE J2344, ISO 6469, and IEC 60664 provide guidelines to ensure personal safety in vehicles which use high voltage components. This paper proposes electric circuit concepts which are recommended to implement in a PEU to ensure personal safety. The recommendations from the standard ISO6469 with respect to high voltage wiring and marking of high voltage components are discussed in the paper.