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Electrical Drive Modeling through a Multiphysics System Simulation Approach //
Modeling and simulating the cold plate can be performed with Ansys Icepak, a
thermal–CFD simulation tool for electronic cooling devices. The Icepak model
uses forced convection with ambient and cooling liquid temperature of 70°C.
The model size is 2.4 million (Figure 4).
For system simulation, Simplorer is used to generate an equivalent thermal
model to be coupled to the IGBT models. One accurate and robust technique
is to develop a reduced-order model (ROM) f rom high-fidelity Icepak results.
To make the ROM, Icepak creates step responses of the thermal system
(Figures 5 and 6). Based on the step responses, the ROM can be created so it
has the same step responses.
Subsequently, the ROM can be used inside Ansys Simplorer for temperature
calculation with excellent accuracy under arbitrary heat profiles.
/ Simulating Complete Drive System
The appropriate simulation methodology should enable designers to validate
each step of product design by incorporating simulation models early in the
process.
In this way, power electronics designers have realistic temperature operating
points, software developers can test and validate codes with realistic hardware
models, and mechanical and thermal engineers can dispose of accurate data
such as losses values and distributions.
Figure 3. One-side cooling system of cold plate
modeling for power modules.
Figure 4. Mesh plot of geometry.
Figure 5. Steady-state results for fluid flow calculation.
