Establishment of methodology for evaluating capacitors toward highly reliable power electronic converters

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K18061
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Power engineering/Power conversion/Electric machinery
• Research Institution: Kyushu Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Hasegawa Kazunori 九州工業大学, 大学院生命体工学研究科, 助教 (80712637)
• Research Collaborator: Omura Ichiro 九州工業大学, 大学院生命体工学研究科, 教授 ; Nishizawa Shin-ichi 九州大学, 応用力学研究所, 教授
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 直流リンクコンデンサ / 信頼性 / パワーエレクトロニクス回路 / インバータ / 損失測定 / 寿命診断

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study presented methodologies for evaluating capacitors toward highly reliable power electronic converters. A special small-power inverter was designed, constructed, and tested for evaluating capacitors, which provides equivalent voltage and current waveforms to a full-scale inverter although its power rating is less than 1/10 of the full-scale inverter. This study also developed a calorimetric power-loss measurement method with the small-power inverter, which achieved power-loss measurement that is of the order of 1 W. In addition, ageing test of capacitors was carried out to estimate the lifetime of the capacitors. The test revealed that attention should be paid both to the equivalent-series resistance (ESR) and to the capacitance when one monitors health condition of capacitors.

Free Research Field

パワーエレクトロニクス