AAU Energy
Education within Reliability of Power Electronic Components
Link to registration of PhD courses can be found at https://phd.moodle.aau.dk.
PhD courses
Description
The course will be the latest research outcomes of the Center of Reliable Power Electronics (CORPE). Since 2013, more than 170 participants from universities and companies have been trained in this 3-day course. By considering the feedbacks from participants and newly obtained research results from CORPE in the last few years, the 2021 version of the course will be 4 days focusing on failure mechanisms and degradation models of active power devices and capacitors, system-level reliability assessment and design tools, and reliability testing methods.
Organizer
Prof. Huai Wang, hwa@et.aau.dk , Aalborg University
Lecturers
Prof. Huai Wang, Prof. Francesco Iannuzzo, and Assoc. Professor Dao Zhou from AAU, Reliability Advisor Peter de Place Rimmen
ECTS
4
Date/time
4 days, August 20-23, 2022, all days 8:30 – 16:30
Place
Aalborg University, Pontoppidanstræde 101, 9220 Aalborg East
Description
After more than four decades of development, Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) are widely used in many high-power industrial applications. However, the complex and harsh working conditions are demanding higher and higher reliability, reaching up to 30-year expected operating life. In parallel with IGBT modules, gate drivers have been also improved dramatically over the years, significantly contributing to reliability improvement. In fact, as an important interface between IGBT modules and controllers, modern gate drivers do not only provide optimal switching signals but also monitor the operation status of IGBT modules themselves. In particular, benefiting from the understanding of semiconductor behavior matured over the years, both wear status and abnormal events can be monitored and detected, respectively, thanks to modern IGBT gate driver technologies. This course presented an overview of state-of-the-art advanced gate driver techniques for enhancing the reliability of IGBT modules, hence power converters. The course contents can be summarized in general switching theory, modern gate driving strategies, active thermal control, detection, and protection methods.
Organizer
Prof. Francesco Iannuzzo, fia@et.aau.dk , Aalborg University
Lecturers
Prof. Francesco Iannuzzo, AAU
ECTS
2
Date/time
2 days, August 29-30, 2022, all days 8:30 – 16:30
Place
Aalborg University, Pontoppidanstræde 101, 9220 Aalborg East
Description
The main component of modern Power Electronics circuits is the semiconductor power switch. This course presents the fundamentals of Power Switches operations from a physical point of view, together with the specific peculiarities and the reason to use them in a special application.
An overview on different packaging technologies and their properties, advantages and disadvantages, is also given. Requirements from the applications and possibilities to tackle them with a semiconductor package solution will be proposed.
Organizer
Prof. Francesco Iannuzzo, fia@et.aau.dk, Aalborg University
Lecturers
Prof. Eckart Hoene, AAU and Fraunhofer IZM; Prof. Francesco Iannuzzo, AAU; Prof. Kjeld Pedersen, AAU, Prof. Vladimir Popok, AAU
ECTS
3
Date/Time
October 31– November 2, 2022, all days 8:30 – 16:30
Place
Pontoppidanstræde 101, 9220 Aalborg East, Denmark
Description
Simulation of power electronic components and systems is key to achieve the Design for Reliability (DfR) approach. Besides, multi-domain, multi-physics and multi-objective optimization tools are required for future integrated power electronics. This industrial/PhD course will equip attendees with the theory, fundamentals and advanced multiphysics simulation and modeling techniques required to effectively design power electronics systems and components. When selecting a new power electronics component, the design engineer must consider thermal management, EMC/EMI, magnetics, mechanics and manufacturability. Although power electronics designers often concentrate on only one critical issue at a time, e.g. thermal management, in a DfR approach, the trend is to take into account multiphysics aspects.
The course targets applying the problem based-learning (PBL) teaching method and presents a step-by-step training on design development of power electronics converter and components using multiphysics tools including ANSYS Workbench, Simplorer, Maxwell, Q3D, RMxprt, HFSS, SIwave, Icepak, Mechanical and Sherlock to design power electronics from component level – e.g. power module, heatsink and fuse– to system level – e.g. circuit parasitics. The course contents are based on the latest research outcomes of the Center of Reliable Power Electronics (CORPE). Following the PBL model that focuses on learning by doing and reflection, the course activities will include group work, problem defining and solving applied to real-world case studies, practical exercises, and discussion sessions.
Organizer
Assoc. Professor Amir Sajjad Bahman
Lecturers
Assoc. Professor Amir Sajjad Bahman, AAU, Prof. Eckart Hoene, Fraunhofer IZM, Trainers from EDRMedeso (ANSYS Channel Partner)
ECTS
3
Date/Time
3 days, November 28–30, 2022, all days 8:30 – 16:30
Description
In this course, the continuously growing importance of power electronics and the need for long and reliable power semiconductor devices will be addressed. First, an introduction to the most widely used power semiconductor devices will be given with a short introduction to its operation principle. Then, the role of the parasitic elements and thermal stresses in real applications, without forgetting about abnormal operations such as short-circuit will be addressed. With the target of accelerating the transition towards long-term lifetime of power electronic systems, four golden rules for reliable power module design will be proposed, which includes reliable operation under both normal and abnormal conditions.
On the second day, an overview of the most common failure mechanisms in silicon IGBTs and SiC MOSFETs will be presented. The prediction of such failure modes is complex since they can be triggered due to many parameters, such as temperature, voltage variation, inductive and capacitance effects, unbalanced current distribution and also EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference). Examples of instabilities will be given and the PhD student will become familiar with the failures that one can find in the field. The student will learn through a software tool, such as PSpice, how to model abnormal operations aiming at increasing the device robustness.
Organizer
Prof. Francesco Iannuzzo, fia@et.aau.dk , Aalborg University
Lecturers
Prof. Francesco Iannuzzo, Assist. Prof. Amir Sajjad Bahman, AAU
ECTS
2
Date/time
December 1 - 2, 2022, all days 8:30 – 16:30
Place
Aalborg University, Pontoppidanstræde 101, 9220 Aalborg East