Thermal Loading and Lifetime Estimation for Power Device Considering Mission Profiles in Wind Power Converter

As a key component in the wind turbine system, the power electronic converter and its power semiconductors suffer from complicated power loadings related to environment, and are proven to have high failure rates. Therefore, correct lifetime estimation of wind power converter is crucial for the reliability improvement and also for cost reduction of wind power technology. Unfortunately, the existing lifetime estimation methods for the power electronic converter are not yet suitable in the wind power application, because the comprehensive mission profiles are not well specified and included. Consequently, a relative more advanced approach is proposed in this paper, which is based on the loading and strength analysis of devices and takes into account different time constants of the thermal behaviors in power converter. With the established methods for loading and lifetime estimation for power devices, more detailed information of the lifetime-related performance in wind power converter can be obtained. Some experimental results are also included to validate the thermal behavior of power device under different mission profiles.

[1]  H. Hobart.  The cost of electricity at the source , Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

[2]  R. Brook,et al.  Cumulative Damage in Fatigue: A Step towards Its Understanding , 1969 .

[3]  P. Sørensen,et al.  Wind models for simulation of power fluctuations from wind farms , 2002 .

[4]  R.W. De Doncker,et al.  Inverter design for hybrid electrical vehicles considering mission profiles , 2005, 2005 IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference.

[5]  B. Hahn,et al.  Reliability of Wind Turbines , 2007 .

[6]  Adam Niesłony,et al.  Determination of fragments of multiaxial service loading strongly influencing the fatigue of machine components , 2009 .

[7]  Peter Tavner,et al.  Reliability of wind turbine subassemblies , 2009 .

[8]  Zhe Chen,et al.  A Review of the State of the Art of Power Electronics for Wind Turbines , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[9]  Uwe Scheuermann,et al.  Reliability challenges of automotive power electronics , 2009, Microelectron. Reliab..

[10]  Stig Munk-Nielsen,et al.  Lifetime investigation of high power IGBT modules , 2011, Proceedings of the 2011 14th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications.

[11]  M. Wilkinson.  Measuring Wind Turbine Reliability-Results of the Reliawind Project , 2011 .

[12]  Frede Blaabjerg,et al.  Multilevel converters for 10 MW Wind Turbines , 2011, Proceedings of the 2011 14th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications.

[13]  Frede Blaabjerg,et al.  An overview of the reliability prediction related aspects of high power IGBTs in wind power applications , 2011, Microelectron. Reliab..

[14]  Pedro Rodriguez,et al.  Electro-thermal modeling for junction temperature cycling-based lifetime prediction of a press-pack IGBT 3L-NPC-VSC applied to large wind turbines , 2011, 2011 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition.

[15]  Dawei Xiang,et al.  An Industry-Based Survey of Reliability in Power Electronic Converters , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications.

[16]  M. Liserre,et al.  Power electronics converters for wind turbine systems , 2011, 2011 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition.

[17]  A. Mertens,et al.  Steady state lifetime estimation of the power semiconductors in the rotor side converter of a 2 MW DFIG wind turbine via power cycling capability analysis , 2011, Proceedings of the 2011 14th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications.

[18]  Frede Blaabjerg,et al.  Design for reliability of power electronic systems , 2012, IECON 2012 - 38th Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial Electronics Society.

[19]  A. Davoudi,et al.  A Unified Approach to Reliability Assessment of Multiphase DC–DC Converters in Photovoltaic Energy Conversion Systems , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[20]  Dushan Boroyevich,et al.  Reliability-Oriented Design of Three-Phase Power Converters for Aircraft Applications , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[21]  Wenyuan Li,et al.  Effect of Wind Speed on Wind Turbine Power Converter Reliability , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion.

[22]  F. Blaabjerg,et al.  Reliability-cost models for the power switching devices of wind power converters , 2012, 2012 3rd IEEE International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems (PEDG).

[23]  Hans-Gunter Eckel,et al.  Fundamental frequency and mission profile wearout of IGBT in DFIG converters for windpower , 2013, 2013 15th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (EPE).

[24]  Frede Blaabjerg,et al.  Future on Power Electronics for Wind Turbine Systems , 2013, IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics.

[25]  Frede Blaabjerg,et al.  Lifetime estimation for the power semiconductors considering mission profiles in wind power converter , 2013, 2013 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition.

[26]  F. Blaabjerg,et al.  A reliability-oriented design method for power electronic converters , 2013, 2013 Twenty-Eighth Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC).

[27]  Frede Blaabjerg,et al.  Transitioning to Physics-of-Failure as a Reliability Driver in Power Electronics , 2014, IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics.

[28]  M. Sheikhi,et al.  Thermal Equivalent Circuit Model for Coupled-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers , 2015, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.

[29]  Ke Ma.  Electro-Thermal Model of Power Semiconductors Dedicated for Both Case and Junction Temperature Estimation , 2015 .