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Book: Power Electronics Converters and Systems
Chapter 14 – Reliability in Power Electronics
Matlab Files – Click here to download
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Paper: Development of a Didatic Platform for Flexible Power Electronic Converter
Power electronic converters are the subject of several studies and applications. Knowledge about those converters is essential for several technical and undergraduate courses in the field of Electrical Engineering and related areas. The presence of converter modules in laboratories can be beneficial for experimental validations in academic research and educational purposes, for allowing students to have practical contact with different converter topologies and applications. However, the commercially available power converters are generally manufactured for specific applications, with poor versatility and high cost, when applied for academic purposes. For this reason, several laboratories propose the design of versatile converters, mainly for multilevel converter research. Nevertheless, most of these projects present module designs based on half-bridge topology due to their low cost. Therefore, this project topology requires more modules to operate as topologies based on a full-bridge converter. Besides, modules based on full-bridge topology can also work in a half-bridge configuration. Thus, this work presents the design of full-bridge modules capable of operating as different types of converters, as well as the project of the dc-link voltage measurement, isolated power supply and bypass circuits. Moreover, this work addresses the heatsink choice, the thermal evaluation for the semiconductor devices and the realization of galvanic isolation between the signal and power circuits.
Click here to download the complete design of the didactic modules and the PCB schematics is available for download:
How to cite our paper:
VICTOR GUIMARÃES FRANÇA, JOÃO ; HUNDER DUTRA GHERARD PINTO, JONATHAN ; DO CARMO MENDONÇA, DAYANE ; VICTOR MATOS FARIAS, JOÃO ; OLIVEIRA DE SOUSA, RENATA ; AUGUSTO PEREIRA, HEVERTON ; ISAAC SELEME JÚNIOR, SELEME ; FAGNER CUPERTINO, ALLAN . DEVELOPMENT OF A DIDACTIC PLATFORM FOR FLEXIBLE POWER ELECTRONIC CONVERTERS. ELETRÔNICA DE POTÊNCIA (IMPRESSO), v. 27, p. 225-235, 2022.
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COBEP/SPEC 2023
Paper: Thevenin Model based on Look-up Table to Emulate PV Panels in Power Electronics Simulation
Click here to download the Thevenin Model in PLECS Software available for download:
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COBEP/SPEC 2023
Paper: Modified Rainflow Algorithm for Lifetime Estimation of Semiconductors Devices
Abstract: Reliable operation is essential for any power electronic system. Nevertheless, power electronic systems include a large number of fragile elements. Among these elements, the semiconductor devices are the most likely to fail. Recent reliability evaluation tools employ a cycle counting algorithm to compute the degradation in semiconductor devices, where the rainflow algorithm is the most popular. However, since the rainflow was first created for fatigue analysis, this algorithm presents some issues when applied for semiconductor devices. Indeed, the rainflow is unable to compute the effective heating time and time-dependent equivalent mean temperature of each thermal cycle. Besides, half-cycles are counted by conventional rainflow. However, apart from the half-cycles at the end of the data, these half-cycles should not be taken into consideration in the life consumption computation. Therefore, this work proposes a modified rainflow for the lifetime estimation of semiconductor devices. This methodology adapts the conventional rainflow to filter half-cycles and compute the effective heating time and the equivalent mean temperature. The impact of the methodology on lifetime estimation is verified in a modular multilevel converter. Besides, analyses with two distinct mission profiles are performed to evaluate the modified impact on lifetime estimation. The results demonstrated that the modified rainflow significantly affects the lifetime computation of all critical joints of an insulatedgate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module for both case studies considered.
How to cite our paper:
R. O. De Sousa, R. C. De Barros, W. C. S. Amorim, A. F. Cupertino and H. A. Pereira, “Modified Rainflow Algorithm for Lifetime Estimation of Semiconductors Devices,” 2023 IEEE 8th Southern Power Electronics Conference and 17th Brazilian Power Electronics Conference (SPEC/COBEP), Florianopolis, Brazil, 2023, pp. 1-8, doi: 10.1109/SPEC56436.2023.10408046.
Click here to download the Version 1 of Modified Rainflow Algorithm.
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Paper: Modified rainflow algorithm for temperature-time-dependent counting in lifetime estimation of power devices
Under Review Paper. Submitted to Eletrônica de Potência (Open Journal of Power Electronics).
Click here to download the Newest Version of Modified Rainflow Algorithm