Proceedings of 2015 IEEE International Conference on ID5194

Applied Superconductivity and Electromagnetic Devices

Shanghai, China, November 20-23, 2015

Calculation and Analysis of IGBT Power Loss in

Drive System for EV
Hui Hui Bao Wei Zhang, Yi Yang, Yi Chen
Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Nantong University Nantong University
Nantong 226019, China Nantong 226019, China
zhang.w@ntu.edu.cn zhang.w@ntu.edu.cn

Abstract—Nowadays, the electric vehicle (EV) gradually replace

the traditional fuel vehicle. Besides the batteries and the motor,
the power electronic devices are important parts in an EV. In the
paper, the co-simulation model of drive system in EV is
established and investigated by software Simplorer and
Matlab/Simulink, and the power loss of IGBT is calculated and
analyzed by considering the influence of frequency and
temperature. The result shows that the switching frequency and
working temperature have obvious influences on the power
device loss, and therefore the IGBT power loss can not be
neglected for the precise design of drive system.
Figure 1. Simulation model of drive system.
Keywords-the electric vehicle (EV); simplorer; simulink; power
loss; IGBT In the paper, the inverter simulation model is consisted of
FS450R12KE4 IGBT modules, and it is packaged by software
Simplorer. Because IGBT is an electrothermal coupling
I. INTRODUCTION module, the thermal performance can’t be neglected in order to
The development of electric vehicle (EV) is a practicable improve the reliability of the drive system in EV. The inner
way to release the pressure from energy and environmental for thermal network model adopts Foster model [3], and it is set up
today’s auto industry. It is noticed that the performances of when IGBT module is packaged, as shown in Fig. 2.
drive system for EV have direct impacts on the whole vehicle’s
dynamic characteristics and reliability. Induction motor plays
an important role in the application of the electric vehicle
because of its high efficiency, robustness, low cost, and high
reliability [1]. It is well known that the insulated gate bipolar
transistor (IGBT) has been very widely used in the inverter
Figure 2. Inner thermal network model of IGBT.
device owing to its high voltage, large current and fast
switching speed. With the switching frequency and working The external thermal network model of IGBT is also
temperature rise, the power loss is increased gradually, so the established by a RC thermal circuit [4]. As described in [4], 4-
IGBT power loss can not be neglected. In order to the precise order exponential term is sufficient to simulate the transient
calculation of IGBT power loss and improve the efficiency of thermal impedance of IGBT module, and the error is less than
the drive system, the dynamic and thermal model should be 5%. The external thermal network model of FS450R12KE4
considered [2]. In this paper, the co-simulation is applied to model is shown in Fig. 3.
investigate the drive system of induction motor for EV, by
which the precise calculation of IGBT power loss is carried out.

II. SIMULATION MODEL OF DRIVE SYSTEM

The simulation model of drive system for the EV is
established by software Simplorer. It is indicated in Fig. 1 that
the motor drive system is composed of DC source, inverter,
motor, and load. The DC power supply takes place of the
batteries in EV, the inverter circuit is consisted of packaged (a) (b)
IGBT devices, three-phase squirrel cage induction motor is as Figure 3. (a) FS450R12KE4 model; (b) External thermal network model of
drive motor, and the load is regulated by the torque source. IGBT.

Table I gives the all values of the external thermal

resistance.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of

China (51507087，51307089), and the Science and Technology Support Plan
Project of Jiangsu Province, China (BK20140430)

978-1-4673-8107-9/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE 276

 TABLE I. EXTERNAL THERMAL NETWORK PARAMETERS TABLE II. COMPARISON OF IGBT POWER LOSS
IGBT IGBT Diode Heat Current IGBT IGBT IGBT IGBT
-Diode copper copper sink hysteresis power loss power loss power loss power loss
substrate substrate -ambient width without with with with
-heat sink -heat sink thermal thermal thermal thermal
R(Kel/W) 0.1 0.69 0.32 0.133 network network network network
C(J/Kel) 210 630 530 1000 (W) /20℃ (W)/20℃ (W)/30℃ (W)/40℃
20 161 301 393.6 425.8
III. SIMULATION RESULTS
12 469.2 534.2 580.9 689.7
As shown in Fig. 4, it is the diagram of the vector control
system of speed and flux closed-loop with torque inside loop 6 1155.2 1250.8 1474 1726.4
which is established in software Matlab/Simulink [5]. Fig. 8 is the junction temperature curve by considering the
thermal network. It can be seen in Fig. 8 that the junction
temperature rises firstly, and then reaches to the stable state
eventually.

Figure 4. Vector control system of induction motor.

Assuming the given speed is 1000 r/min, the initial junction Figure 8. The junction temperature curve with thermal network.
temperature is always 20 ℃ , the waveforms of three-phase
current, torque and speed are shown in Fig. 5-7, respectively. IV. CONCLUSIONS
In the paper, the co-simulation model of drive system in EV
is established and investigated by the softwares Simplorer and
Matlab/Simulink under different frequency and different
temperature. 4-order exponential term is used to simulate
external heat transfer, and it is found that the thermal network
has a significant impact on IGBT power loss, and affect the
reliability of IGBT device. Meanwhile, the power of IGBT is
Figure 5. Three-phase current waveforms.
also very important for the design of the cooling system and
the choice of heat sink. Based on the calculation and analysis
of IGBT power loss, it is valuable to precisely establish the
drive system of EV.

REFERENCES
[1] P. M. Menghal, and A. J. Laxmi. “Dynamic modeling, simulation &
Figure 6. Torque waveform. analysis of induction motor drives,” 2014 International Conference on
Science Engineering and Management Research (ICSEMR), pp. 1-7,
Chennai, India, Nov. 27-29, 2014.
[2] T. Musikka, L. Popova, R. Juntunen, and M. Lohtander. “Improvement
of igbt model characterization with experimental tests.” 2013 15th
European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications (EPE), pp.
1-10, Lille, France, 2013.
[3] M. Chen, A. Hu, and X. D. Yang. “Predicting IGBT junction
temperature with thermal network component model,” 2011 Asia-Pacific
on Power and Energy Engineering Conference (APPEEC), pp. 1-4,
Figure 7. Speed waveform. Wuhan, China, Mar. 25-28, 2011.
[4] M. Musallam, C. Buttay, C. M. Johnson, and C. Bailey. “Reduced order
IGBT power loss under the different circumstances are electro-thermal models for real-time health management of power
calculated and compared in Table II. It is noticed that with and electronics,” 2007 International Conference on Thermal, Mechanical and
without considering thermal network model have influence on Multi-Physics Simulation Experiments in Microelectronics and Micro-
Systems, pp. 1-6, London, England, April. 16-18, 2007.
the junction temperature which decides IGBT power loss. It is
[5] F. L. Shen, Y. K. Man, and J. H. Wang. “The research on the control of
found that the power loss of IGBT device is increased with the induction motor system based on different field orientation,” 2011
switching frequency rise. Moreover, the thermal network has International Conference on Electronic & Mechanical Engineering and
non-negligible effects on IGBT power loss, especially when Information Technology, pp. 3070-3074, Harbin, China, August. 16-18,
the working temperature rising. 2011.

277