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.
