Failure assessment and HALT test of electrical converters

Reliability improvement of power electronic products is the key action to achieve sustainable forms of production and use of electric energy. The availability of electrical converters in applications like power transmission, conversion, and usage in motors is crucial for sustainability. To address reliability and availability, risk assessment strategies are becoming increasingly applied in power electronic research and development. Beyond the typically used Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), similar methods exist like Design Review Based on Failure Mode (DRBFM) to assess risks or failures. Applied together with experimental Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT), these methods are powerful tools for reliability evaluation and improvement in the design phase of a product. This paper presents the benefits of using DRBFM during the preparation of HALT on a power electronic converter.