Thermal Stress and High Temperature Effects on Power Devices in a Fault-Resilient NPC IGCT-Based Converter

The integrated gate-commutated thyristor and presspack power diodes have been successfully applied in medium-voltage neutral point-clamped converters in the power range from hundreds of kilowatt to tenths of megawatt. Responsible for driving key processes in the industry, high reliability and availability are crucial for these converters, since their repair or replacement after failure events may take too long. Given the vital importance of such equipment for the drive systems, they are equipped with protection schemes that are usually reliable, but not infallible. If the protection scheme of the converter does not work properly in a short-circuit situation, serious damages may be expected on its power semiconductor devices. In this paper, the power semiconductors thermal behavior is investigated using finite-element models in the COMSOL Multiphysics software. Three-dimensional thermal models of the power devices were raised by industrial radiography techniques, aiming to expand the information provided by the manufacturers. The authors show how these results can be used in a real equipment to attenuate the catastrophic effects of the protection scheme malfunction, so limiting the damage pattern within the converter to their least complex power devices.