Circuit bridging of digital equipment caused by smoke from a cable fire

Advanced reactor systems are likely to use protection systems with digital electronics that ideally should be resistant to environmental hazards, including smoke from possible cable fires. Previous smoke tests have shown that digital safety systems can fail even at relatively low levels of smoke density and that short-term failures are likely to be caused by circuit bridging. Experiments were performed to examine these failures, with a focus on component packaging and protection schemes. Circuit bridging, which causes increased leakage currents and arcs, was gauged by measuring leakage currents among the leads of component packages. The resistance among circuit leads typically varies over a wide range, depending on the nature of the circuitry between the pins, bias conditions, circuit board material, etc. Resistance between leads can be as low as 20 kΩ and still be good, depending on the component. For these tests, the authors chose a printed circuit board and components that normally have an interlead resistance above 1012 Ω, but if the circuit is exposed to smoke, circuit bridging causes the resistance to fall below 103 Ω. Plated-through-hole (PTH) and surface-mounted (SMT) packages were exposed to a series of different smoke environments using a mixture of environmentally qualified cables for fuel. Conformal coatings and enclosures were tested as circuit protection methods. High fuel levels, high humidity, and high flaming burns were the conditions most likely to cause circuit bridging. The inexpensive conformal coating that was tested - an acrylic spray - reduced leakage currents, but enclosure in a chassis with a fan did not. PTH packages were more resistant to smoke-induced circuit bridging than SMT packages. Active components failed most often in tests where the leakage currents were high, but failure did not always accompany high leakage currents