Improved comprehensive thermal model for power electronics building block applications

Abstract

Power electronics devices play a key role in utilizing energy efficiently. When the power demand is highly dynamic and variable, the key requirement is to transfer power to the load with the most appropriate voltage, current, phase and frequency so as to achieve the most efficient conversion of power under all load conditions. IGBT behavior under short circuit and overload turn off condition is thus quite important. In this paper, an improved and comprehensive thermal model for power electronics building block (PEBB) is presented, which provides a higher degree of predictability of temperature, in not only steady state, especially at high current conditions but also under different short circuit failure modes. © 2011 IEEE.