Innovative conduction cooling for high-power-density converters

功率转换器在将电能转换为世界上所有类型的电力负载方面发挥着关键作用。热管理对功率转换器的可靠性至关重要，因为变压器和半导体等关键部件的温度过高是导致功率转换器故障的主要原因。随着人们对高功率密度要求的不断提高，功率变流器的热管理面临着极大的挑战。领先的整体功率解决方案提供商阿尔法技术有限公司(ATL)正计划通过用被动冷却取代主动冷却来进一步提高其高功率密度整流器的产品可靠性。ATL需要一种新的创新的热管理策略，它主要基于热传导，可以将所有组件保持在其安全温度范围内。李博士的电子冷却和多相流实验室以及UBC Okanagan的Eberle博士和Wang博士的电力电子实验室将与ATL合作，为ATL的电源模块开发基于导热的被动冷却。该项目将以实验和数值两种方式进行。该项目将涉及对磁性部件进行多物理建模，并在电源模块和磁性部件一级进行详细的热分析。将研究和开发热管理的创新概念，以解决磁性部件的热挑战。开发的技术将经过测试并转移到ATL。该项目将为被动冷却热设计在高功率密度变流器中的应用开辟广阔的前景。这对于电力行业以最高的效率和可靠性满足各种系统应用的电力需求具有非常重要的意义。该项目符合加拿大支持行业竞争力的议程，因为该研究将提高加拿大在全球电力电子行业的竞争力。

Power converters play a key role in converting electric power to power all types of electrical loads in the world. Thermal management is essential to the reliability of power converters as excessive temperatures of the critical components such as transformers and semiconductors are the primary causes of failures in power converters. Nowadays the thermal management of power converters is becoming extremely challenging due to the increasing demand for high power density. Alpha Technologies Ltd. (ATL), the preeminent total power solutions provider, is planning to further increase the product reliability of their high-power-density rectifiers by replacing the active cooling with passive cooling. ATL desires a new and innovative thermal management strategy, which is mainly based on heat conduction and can maintain all components within their safe temperature limits Dr. Li's Electronics Cooling & Multiphase Flows Lab and Drs. Eberle and Wang's Power Electrics Lab at UBC Okanagan will collaborate with ATL to develop the conduction-based passive cooling for ATL's power modules. The project will be conducted both experimentally and numerically. The project will involve multiphysics modeling of magnetic components and detailed thermal analyses at the levels of power module and magnetic components. Innovative concepts of thermal management will be investigated and developed to address the thermal challenges for magnetic components. The developed technology will be tested and transferred to ATL. The proposed project will open up great potential of applying passive-cooling thermal design in high-power-density converters. This is highly important for power industry to meet the power requirements for a variety of system applications with the highest efficiency and reliability. The project fits into Canada's agenda to support industry competitiveness as the research will enhance Canada's competitiveness in the global industry of power electronics.