A 3-D-Lumped Thermal Network Model for Long-Term Load Profiles Analysis in High-Power IGBT Modules

Abstract

The conventional $RC$ -lumped thermal networks are widely used to estimate the temperature of power devices, but they lack of accuracy in addressing detailed thermal behaviors/couplings in different locations and layers of the high-power insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules. On the other hand, a finite-element (FE)-based simulation is the other method, which is often used to analyze the steady-state thermal distribution of IGBT modules, but it is not possible to be used for a long-term analysis of load profiles of power converter, which is needed for reliability assessments and better thermal design. This paper proposes a novel 3-D $RC$ -lumped thermal network for the high-power IGBT modules. The thermal coupling effects among the chips and among the critical layers are modeled, and boundary conditions, including the cooling conditions, are also considered. It is demonstrated that the proposed thermal model enables both accurate and fast temperature estimation of high-power IGBT modules in the real loading conditions of the converter while maintaining the critical details of the thermal dynamics and thermal distribution. The proposed thermal model is verified by both the FE-based simulation and the experimental results.