Electro-Thermo-Mechanical Analysis of High-Power Press-Pack Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors under Various Mechanical Clamping Conditions

Abstract

With the continuously increasing demand for energy and the limited supply of fossil fuels, renewable power sources are becoming ever more important. Knowing that future energy demand will grow, manufacturers are increasing the size of new wind turbines (WTs) in order to reduce the cost of energy production. The reliability of the components has a large impact on the overall cost of a WT, and press-pack (PP) insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) could be a good solution for future multi-megawatt WTs because of advantages like high power density and reliability. When used in power converters, PP IGBTs are stacked together with other components in a clamping mechanism in order to ensure electrical and thermal contact. Incorrect mechanical clamping of PP IGBTs has a negative impact on their reliability and consequently on the reliability of the WT. In this study the impact of mechanical clamping conditions on the static thermal distribution among chips in PP IGBTs is investigated.