Abstract
Optimal thermal management system design is critical for power electronic converters to ensure the reliability of power semiconductor switches. Medium power density inverter systems are often air-cooled to ensure an efficient and cost-effective thermal management solution. In addition, using heat pipes as the heat transfer medium between the heat sources and the heat sink can provide lower volume for the entire inverter. This paper investigates the effectiveness of Teaching Learning Based Optimization (TLBO) for finding the optimal forced-air heat sink with heat pipe cooling system to achieve higher fan efficiency and lower inverter packaging volume. The optimal design is found utilizing commercially available fans and heat pipes. The TLBO design optimization is also compared to the highly implemented Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and it is found that TLBO uses 20 times fewer iterations than PSO to converge, and that the TLBO results are more robust for different design constraints.
Highlights
Advances in the field of power electronics have resulted in an increase in power density and miniaturization on the device level [1]
Silicon (Si) power switches such as IGBTs have been widely used in the power electronics industry for the last few decades, silicon-based technology has some limitations in terms of increasing power density
This paper introduces a new approach of using teachinglearning-based optimization (TLBO) for optimizing the thermal design of an air-cooled silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET inverter using integrated heat pipes, where heat pipes are used to transfer the heat out of the compact space to a feasible space for heat dissipation in power electronic packages
Summary
Advances in the field of power electronics have resulted in an increase in power density and miniaturization on the device level [1]. One of the critical limitations of Si power switches is their relatively low junction temperature operation capability, which often prevents the cooling system design from achieving high power density. The introduction of silicon carbide (SiC) power switches has resulted in higher operating temperature limits due to the higher melting temperature of SiC compared to Si. due to the ∼3x higher thermal conductivity of SiC compared to Si, heat generated within the semiconductor can be dissipated with a lower temperature drop across the device [2], [3]. As there is a trend towards smaller die areas to enable higher switching frequencies, managing the heat dissipation from the component requires more efficient cooling techniques to achieve the thermal requirements of these high-power density components
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