Thermal Engineering of Power

Thermal engineering of power electronic systems

is a key to achieve high performance and

reliability. In the focus of the new ECPE tutorial is

the thermal simulation and verification of the

SEMIKUBE IGBT converter which is equipped

with thermal sensors for verification.

Part 1: At first the topology of the IGBT converter

and it’s components are described as well as the

data sheet. Then the results of the electrical

simulation are presented in regard to

performance and thermal losses. The following

sections deal with basics of heat conduction,

convection and exchange. Practical examples

will be used for a good understanding of cooling

the hot parts in the system. After an introduction

to analytical and FEM methods five groups are

formed to exercise thermal simulations and

measurements.

Part 2: After a detailed description of the results

of the first part the impact of thermal behavior of

the converter on the reliability is discussed in

detail. The knowledge of functional requirements,

mission profiles, physics of failure, thermal

measurements (thermal images and impedance)

are needed for building-in reliability and for the

robustness validation process.