Design of Innovative Thermal Management Solutions for High Density Power Electronic Applications

With increasing power density in power electronic systems, detailed discussions of
thermal effects become more and more important. In this thesis, thermal
fundamentals for power electronic systems are discussed, followed by
investigations of possible cooling concepts for a given automotive onboard charger
concept. Approaches to thermal modelling are discussed in high detail, ranging
from single component models to full system scale. Based on thermal finite
element simulations, influences of the assembly on single components are
discussed, both in a simplified setup as well as partial and full system simulations.
Effects of different cooling channel geometries are investigated, as well as new
approaches to the cooling of the system. A major finding is the typically high
complexity of thermal networks in power electronic systems, where each
component is influenced by surrounding components. For a successful evaluation
of thermal effects, the full system must be considered.