Condition monitoring of IGBT module for reliability improvement of power converters

Power electronic systems have gradually gained an important status in a wide range of industrial applications such as automotive, motor drives, railway transportation and renewable generation. Accordingly, recent research makes an effort to improve the reliability of power electronic systems to comply with more stringent constraints on safety, cost and availability. The power devices are the one of the most reliability-critical components in power electronic systems. Therefore, its condition monitoring plays an important role to improve the reliability of power electronic systems. This paper proposes a condition monitoring method of an IGBT module. In the first section of this paper, the structure of a conventional IGBT module and related parameter for the condition monitoring are explained. Then, an intelligent on-state collector-emitter voltage measurement circuit and condition monitoring strategies depending on converter operating conditions are described. Finally, experimental results confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.