A Flexible Power Delivery System for Remote Nuclear Inspection Instruments

Remote inspection instruments for applications in nuclear environments, such as uranium processing facilities, reprocessing plants or nuclear power stations, have high reliability requirements. When deployed in a radiation field, damage induced by ionising radiation has the potential to disrupt or damage electronic circuitry, disabling inspection instruments. With power supply circuits particularly sensitive to radiation damage, care must be taken to design robust circuits that are radiation tolerant. The solution implemented in this work is a buck-boost converter with external SiC MOSFETs. It has an input supply range of 10 V – 40 V with maximum output power of 100 W at an output voltage of 12 V. The prototype has an electrical conversion efficiency between 73% and 95%, and a maximum ripple of 160 mV. The prototype was deployed in various radioactive environments in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, with a radiation flux up to 175 µGy h
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, without hardware failures observed.