Derating

The derating curve describes the maximum permissible power dissipation of an electrical or electronic component, depending on its ambient temperature.

Example

An inverter automatically reduces its output (and thus power dissipation ) due to high ambient temperature. The inverter protects itself from overheating itself. The background is that the dissipation of power dissipation under given operating and cooling conditions, and ambient temperature increases, decreases linearly with the difference between component and ambient temperature.

Practice

In practice, power reduction, thus taking into account the derating curve is often not made by the component or the device itself, but is the user's responsibility, if it has not already considered in the development of the overall product.

Connectors

Also have a connector depends on the ambient temperature maximum current with which they must be run. Since the power dissipation of a connector increases quadratically with the current, the ampere decreases in contrast to the above graph is not linear with the ambient temperature.

Computer

In computers, heatsink and fan are often used to investigate the removal of the power loss, eg the main processor to be maximized. Thus, the excess of current capacity-curve is avoided by cooling.

• Power Electronics