Impact of modularity and redundancy in optimising the reliability of power systems that include a large number of power converters

CERN is working on a new particle accelerator that will require a very large number of power converters. In that view, the reliability of the whole powering will be a major issue. The use of a redundancy and modularity may help increasing the overall machine availability. However, the reliability of the redundancy system must be high enough to add a significant improvement when compared to simple module systems. This paper suggests a comparative study of several modular and redundant configurations for optimising power converters reliability and draws some conclusion from what has been achieved in the LHC previous experience.