Part 2 Societal and Environmental Framework
Engineering today is so specialized that many practicing engineers do not realize the full extent and all the ramifications that the societal framework imposes on their everyday activities. These elements were included to emphasize all the societal building blocks of enclosure engineering.
Chapter 7 Standardization
Successful Technical Standardization is a corner stone of successful new product development. A short review of the origins and development of standards and the process that produce them was provided. Standardization establishes a ‘level playing field’ for the competition. Therefore, it behooves participants to understand its rules. Standards development process is based on three internationally recognized principles: openness and transparency, consensus building, and balanced representation. The most important is to exert appropriately indirect influence by mastering the concepts of Net Benefit and Stakeholder Support. The four development pathways need to be understood to select, recommend, and propose the most fitting approach to solve a standardization issue. Understanding and implementing the eight standardization steps are critical at every level including corporate standardization activities.
Chapter 8 Intellectual Properties
Development of a sound intellectual property (IP) rights portfolio is paramount. There are many seemingly isolated types of intellectual properties. As a result, the use of the IP label and its philosophical foundation is vigorously debated. A well-designed intellectual property rights portfolio establishes differentiation from the competition. An excellent IP rights portfolio provides long term and in a few cases unassailable competitive advantage. Therefore, it benefits new product development participants to understand its complex rules.
Chapter 9 Sustainability
There are a few sustainability related legislations that demands awareness, monitoring for changes such as new or expired exemptions, understanding of its myriad of complexities, and ultimately full and proven compliance. The most important issues are conflict resources, REACH, RoHS, and WEEE has global reach despite their limited jurisdiction; 3TG conflict minerals equals tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold; synchronization of end-of-life time frames to provide an avoidance of unexpected future difficulties; understanding of the registration, evaluation, authorization paradigm of REACH; avoidance of SVHCs; and WEEE recycling targets and labelling compliance need to be planned for at the new product development stage.
Chapter 10 Environmental Considerations
Enclosure engineers need to specify electrical and electronics housings, casings, and shells correctly. One way to do this is to use the IP and IK codes. These codes provide protection to the users and the enclosed devices from various intrusions such as water, dust, contaminations and mechanical impacts. Gaskets are deployed to provide a seal between two adjacent surfaces in an enclosure. The following points summarize and highlight the most important aspects: functional requirement specifications (FRS) must include the proper assumptions for the operating environmental conditions; pressure (∆P) and temperature (∆T) differentials facilitate ingress and must be investigated at the conceptual stage design review; internal moisture-removal and drainage system can provide an acceptable solution to many condensation problems; corrosion resistance could be increased by improving robustness, minimizing air flow for cooling purposes, maximizing moisture removal, limiting dissimilar material interfaces, and by the application of protective coatings, potting or encapsulation; it is important to note that care should be taken not to over-specify an IP rating for an application. This is because the cost of an enclosure increases rapidly with the rise in IP rating.
Chapter 11 Interference & Shielding
Every electrical apparatus inherently generates electromagnetic emission due to its operation. Electronics can also be affected by electromagnetic energy. Therefore, enclosures need to be designed and manufactured to meet or exceed relevant interference regulations. Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is also called electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI). EMC can be achieved by preventing interference from penetrating or escaping from an enclosure or housing. Enclosures need to be designed and manufactured to meet or exceed relevant interference regulations such as IEC 61000. The simplest way to think about this challenge is to ensure that the enclosure acts as a Faraday Cage. Many plastics, composites and magnesium can be excellent electromagnetic interference (EMI) attenuators in addition to aluminium.
Chapter 12 Contextual Pillars
This first handbook provided the essential foundations for an appreciation of the various contextual factors affecting enclosure engineering. These were summarized in this last chapter to serve as a reminder or as a quick reference guide to an engineer, manager or any other stakeholder who wishes to refresh his or her memory in a quest for up-to-date knowledge on this exciting subject.
