Active thermal control of isolated soft switching DC/DC converters

Markus Andresen, Giampaolo Buticchi, Marco Liserre

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Power Semiconductors undergo thermal stress during operation, which is caused by thermal cycling. This refers to heating up and cooling down of the junction temperature and leads to aging and finally failures. Active thermal control can reduce the thermal stress of power semiconductors by regulating the power losses. Most algorithms proposed so far are only applicable to hard switching power converters and implement a regulation of the switching frequency, which is not applicable for the isolated DC/DC converters. This work proposes to regulate the duty cycle of the DC/DC converter to control the semiconductor losses, aiming at influencing the consequent thermal stress. The proposed algorithm is analyzed analytically and a thermal controller is designed, which is capable of reducing thermal cycles during operation without prior knowledge about the mission profile. The capability and the limitations of the proposed algorithm are demonstrated with simulations and the effectiveness is validated on a laboratory prototype with junction temperature measurement.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the IECON 2016 - 42nd Annual Conference of the Industrial Electronics Society
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages6818-6823
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781509034741
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Dec 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event42nd Conference of the Industrial Electronics Society, IECON 2016 - Florence, Italy
Duration: 24 Oct 201627 Oct 2016

Publication series

NameIECON Proceedings (Industrial Electronics Conference)

Conference

Conference42nd Conference of the Industrial Electronics Society, IECON 2016
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityFlorence
Period24/10/1627/10/16

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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