Application-Oriented Reliability Testing of Power Electronic Components and Converters

Abstract

Power electronics have been and will continue to be an enabling technology for energy production, storage, transmission, distribution, and consumption. Power electronic converters are usually the critical links in electrical energy systems, affecting system security, safety, energy efficiency, and cost-of-ownership. As a result, the reliability requirements for power electronic components and converter systems generally become more stringent, for example, in e-mobility, renewable energy generation, and power system applications. Testing is one of the vital reliability engineering tools to investigate failure mechanisms, identify weakest points, and demonstrate robustness margins. It contributes to reliability growth along the product development process and the likelihood of failure reduction in field operation. The required resources (i.e., testing time, sample size, testing facility) and the relevance of the testing results to field operation are two crucial considerations in implementing a reliability test. This article introduces the emerging application-oriented testing concepts and facilities through several component-level and converter-level examples.

Reliability Meta-modelling of Power Components

“…To assure the required reliability of power components under application-specific load conditions, end-users must carry out time-consuming and costly activities, e.g. substantial physical and reliability tests, often complemented with complex highfidelity physics-based simulations, to characterise, evaluate and assure their reliability performance [4,5].…”

Finite Control Set Model Predictive Control (FCS-MPC) for Enhancing the Performance of a Single-Phase Inverter in a Renewable Energy System (RES)

“…This facilitates the need for more efficient, feasible, and reliable power electronic converters, of which voltage source inverters (VSI) serve a key role. The applications encompass motor drives, power supplies, static compensators (STATCOMs), fast-charging, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmissions, and flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) ranging from medium to high power (1 kW to several gigawatts) and medium-voltage to high-voltage levels (several hundred volts to several kVs) with continued advancements for even higher levels [2][3][4].…”