FEM Simulation-Based Failure Analysis of Additive Manufacturing Liquid Cold Plates for More Reliable Power Press-Pack Assemblies

Aluminum Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology, employed in the field of liquid cold plates for power electronic devices, leads to new design concepts and great potentials. Volume and weight reduction of the device-heatsink stack is the main reason that pushes our research in AM liquid cold plates for high power press-pack assemblies. In this work, a coupled thermal fluid-dynamic 3D model is implemented in a Finite Element Method (FEM) simulation-based approach, to design innovative cold plate structures. The validation of the numerical model is provided by means of thermal and fluid-dynamic characterization of a prototype. For this purpose, a proper test bench has been set up. Moreover, the model is exploited for studying system failure cases: a press-pack half bridge converter is analyzed, evaluating the thermal response in load short circuit condition and in the case of coolant circuit failure.