Analysis and Modeling of a Liquid Cooled Heat Sink for EV Traction Inverter Systems

High performance inverters are key components in electric applications. The capacity of operation, efficiency and life cycle of inverters can be limited for magnitude of losses and external factors as ambient temperature and humidity. The liquid cooling heat sink can reduces the level of temperature of system and increases the overall eficiency of system. This paper presents an analysis and modeling of a three-phase inverter for electric vehicle applications with liquid cooled heat sink. The study of inverter switching and conduction losses is carried out for a Silicon Carbide devices. The modeling of the heat sink is developed and evaluated through Foster thermal network. The heat sink is simulated in the ANSYS software by using finite element approach. The results of heat sink system temperature are evaluated with different flow rate conditions. The dynamic analysis is performed in Typhoon Hill software with commercial SiC device parameters.