Power Electronics and Motor Drives Recent Progress and Perspective

Reliability and Lifetime Prediction for IGBT Modules in Railway Traction Chains

“…Besides, IGBT modules are also the most sensitive elements to other system failures. For instance, dysfunctions on the IGBT drivers (Bouscayrol et al, 2006;Steimel, 2004), on the sensing elements to monitor the critical electrical and thermal variables of the inverter (Bose, 2006), on the cooling system (Baumann et al, 2001), and on the capacitors (decoupling or filter) (Malagoni-Buiatti et al, 2010) undoubtedly lead to their destruction (induced-failures). Furthermore, their working conditions can be more adverse when the IGBT power module wears out (Lhommeau et al, 2007), a non-optimum thermal management design has been carried out (Perpiñà et al, 2007a(Perpiñà et al, , 2010b, and external electrical dysfunctions occur (Malagoni-Buiatti et al, 2010).…”

“…However, multi-chip packaging introduces an apparent limitation on temperature local monitoring, since multiple devices are connected in parallel leading to temperature spatial resolution problems. Consequently, an average temperature measurement of all devices is always performed (Bose, 2006). Since any sensing method inside the package has not been envisaged by the manufacturers, usually TSPs are used for power cycling purposes, such as the V CE,sat at low current level (Coquery, 2003).…”

“…The motor is represented by three inductive loads interconnected to the nodes between IGBT modules. Aside from IGBT modules, they also include a cooling system (based on air-forced convection, heat-pipes or liquid pump technologies) (Bouscayrol et al, 2006;Baumann et al, 2001), bus-bar high power connections, a close control command or IGBT drivers for switching them (Steimel, 2004;), low voltage connections, capacitors (decoupling or filtering) (Malagoni-Buiatti et al, 2010), mechanical parts for support and connectors, and a control board and current sensors integrated in the IGBT module (Bose, 2006). Fig.…”

High-Performance Motor Drives

“…The roots of power electronics go back to 1901 when P. C. Hewitt invented glass-bulb mercury-arc rectifier [1]. However, the present era of semiconductor power electronics started with the commercially introduced by General Electric (GE) silicon controlled rectifier (SCR), popularly called thyristor, in 1958.…”

New trends and topologies for high power industrial applications: The multilevel converters solution

“…Power Electronics on the other hand, deals with the electric energy conversion, and consequently one of the main concerns is efficiency. Although it is a relatively recent technology, its first developments can be dated in the mid 50's thanks to the commercialization of the SCR, its effects on our lives are everyday more and more important, because of its important reduction in cost, size and increase of performances [1]. The use of advanced control techniques, implemented in modern DSPs or DSP-FPGA combination, has made possible many of the desirable characteristics of modern power systems.…”