Real-Time Aging Monitoring for IGBT Modules Using Case Temperature

Power electronic converters are one of the most fragile components in wind turbines. This paper proposes a two-dimensional (2-D) case temperature-based real-time aging monitoring method for insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules in power converters. By placing two thermal sensors for each switch at the interface between the baseplate of an IGBT module and the cold plate, the thermal parameters containing the aging information of the IGBT module can be obtained to monitor various major aging processes of the IGBT module in real time separately. The proposed method has a low cost and is easy to implement. Simulation and experimental results on a commercial IGBT module are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.