Thermal Management of a Motor Drive Power Module by Liquid Impingement Cooling

Thermal management of a 600V 25A power module by liquid jet impingement is investigated. Experiments are conducted on a module with resistive heat sources mimicking heat dissipation from IGBTs and diodes. An array of 36 DI water jets, 145 – 200µm diameter, impinging on the base plate of the module, demonstrates a 3X and 4X enhancement of the heat dissipation capability compared to the traditional cold plate and air-cooled heat sink respectively. If the power level is held constant, the device junction temperature is reduced by a factor of 3X. At a reduced system pressure (13% atmospheric), an efficient jet impingement boiling on the base plate leads to a device level (1cm 2 area) power density of 230W/cm 2 . The corresponding module volumetric power density is 6.7MW/m 3 , more than twice of water-cooled cold plate. Numerical simulations show that the liquid impingement cooling technique has potential to enhance the module output rating from its current level of 5.2KW to ~20KW and ~62KW, respectively for silicon and silicon carbide devices.