Slides
Video
Abstract
IGBT’s have become increasingly popular for their high voltage and current capabilities. These applications range from transport to renewables. However, IGBT’s are some of the more delicate components in these high power systems, and IGBT failure can have severe economic implications. Therefore, it is important to develop an online health-monitoring framework to ensure proper operation of IGBT power modules and to predict the remaining life of a power module. This work aims to create a thermal model of an IGBT power module in a 3-phase, 2-level inverter that can accurately estimate junction temperature, which provides useful information in evaluating the current health and remaining life of a power module. This model will require the development of hardware that can withstand high voltages and currents that can accurately measure on-state saturation voltage and collector current to calculate power dissipation in the power module.