Accelerated aging and health monitoring of IGBT(s) switches in motor drives

1 online resource (92 pages) : PDF

2014

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

ABSTRACTPAUL RICHARD VALENTINE O'CONNOR. Accelerated aging and health monitoring of IGBT(s) in Motor Drives. (Under the direction of DR. ROBERT W. COX) There has been a proliferation in the use of power electronic drives in applications such as ships, aircrafts, and industrial machines. And as such, power electronic converters are playing a more crucial role in mission critical operations. Maintainability or extended operation, are often required during mission critical operations are thus becoming more valuable. The operation of these devices must be achieved with the utmost safety, reliability and repeat-ability and thus the need arises for these assets to be monitored. Diagnostic algorithms have been developed to use certain key performance indicators (KPIs) to detect incipient failures in electric machines and drives. And with new advancements in digital systems and cloud based analysis, it is becoming increasingly more likely that one can acquire the signals needed to perform incipient fault detection and offload these to computing platforms that can perform deep predictive analytics. It is with this knowledge base that this thesis proposes the development and implementation of a proof-of-concept offline incipient fault detection - OFID scheme for Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors - IGBT(s).The thesis demonstrates a general algorithm that can be used for fault detection. The data acquisition process and the fault detection algorithm being tested on a working prototype AC drive are also presented. Considered also, is the creation of faults using accelerated aging schemes. With the OFID scheme proposed in this thesis, poof of viability of an online incipient fault detection scheme for IGBT(s) is given. And it is with this, potential benefits of lifetime extension of assets, improved controllability, safety and reductions in operating and maintenance costs can be attained.

masters theses

Electrical engineering
Engineering

M.S.

Electrical Engineering

Cox, Robert

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2014.

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For additional information, see http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/.

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

OConnor_uncc_0694N_10738

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:1488