Abstract
This paper presents a reliability study of a directly cooled and an indirectly cooled IGBT module after a test drive of 85.000 Km in a fuel cell electric vehicle. In this case, the car was mainly driven on highway, only a minor part of the distance was driven in urban areas. At the end of the test drive, the power control unit was disassembled and analyzed with regard to the lifetime consumption. First, electrical measurements were carried out and the results were compared with the ones obtained directly after module production (End of Line test). After that, ultrasonic microscopy was performed in order to investigate any delamination in the solder layers. As a third step, an optical inspection was performed to monitor damages in the housing, formation of cracks or degradation of wire bonds. The results show none of the depicted failure modes could be found on the tested power modules after the field test. Obviously, no significant life time consumption could be observed.
Highlights
Eco-friendly vehicle like Hybrid and electric vehicles (HEV) will play a very important role in reducing CO2 emissions and reducing fuel consumption in future transportation
The IGBT modules are exposed to harsh environmental conditions such as severe temperature cycles
Many papers have been written about reliability testing of power modules, life time modelling and calculation [1][2][3]
Summary
Eco-friendly vehicle like Hybrid and electric vehicles (HEV) will play a very important role in reducing CO2 emissions and reducing fuel consumption in future transportation. The energy sources of electrified vehicles, weather it is a high-power battery or a fuel cell, deliver direct current which has to be inverted into alternating current for the electric motor. The core of the main inverter in electrified vehicles is the IGBT power module in order to increase the overall efficiency of the system. The IGBT modules are exposed to harsh environmental conditions such as severe temperature cycles. Eco-friendly vehicle technology requires power modules which are highly reliable, compact, economical and rugged enough to withstand mechanical, electrical and thermal shocks. Active temperature cycles are a result of internal heating of the dies caused by inverting the direct current while driving. Cooled IGBT modules after a test drive of 85.000 Km in a fuel cell electric were analyzed in detail
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