CAE Technology Application Trend for Large-Capacity Power Electronics Development

Large-capacity power electronics in the range of MW or more has large physical dimensions, heavy weight and high power dissipation although the efficiency is high enough. These features sometimes put difficulties into the development only by the hardware prototypes. Then, CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) technology is now going to be applied to overcome some of difficult and complicated designs of parasitic inductance, thermal performance, mechanical strength and so on. The paper summarized trend of CAE technology application by introducing actual examples. The simulation results of CAE tools are evaluated by experiments with actual prototypes. In summary, the CAE technology of these days is found contributing effectively to the development process of large-capacity power electronics equipment.