VemPEBB: Rapid PEBB Thermal Management Tool

Abstract

We introduce VEMPEBB, a rapid power electronics building block (PEBB) thermal management tool tailored for multi-fidelity PEBB modeling within the set-based design (SBD) framework. In accordance with the SBD philosophy, the proposed tool is generalized and applicable to a wide range of PEBB prototypes of different topologies, design requirements, and constraints. VEMPEBB has been developed based on the volume element modeling approach, wherein the computational domain is discretized with lumped hexahedral elements to which the conservation of energy is applied. The spatial dependency of the model is incorporated into the mesh generated using ray-tracing algorithms, and the velocity field is assumed a priori or estimated based on the scaling laws to expedite computations while retaining sufficient accuracy. Furthermore, the tool enables rapid evaluation and prototyping of different external PEBB cooling solutions by either treating them as part of the computational domain or as spatiotemporal boundary conditions. This paper summarizes the mathematical formulation of VEMPEBB and its numerical verification against high-fidelity numerical simulations, and we also discuss its usage and practicality as a low-fidelity model within the SBD framework.