Thermal Cycling in Converter IGBT Modules with Different Cooling Systems in Pitch- and Active Stall-Controlled Tidal Turbines

This paper compares active and passive cooling systems in tidal turbine power electronic converters. The comparison is based on the lifetime of the IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) power modules, calculated from the accumulated fatigue due to thermal cycling. The lifetime analysis accounts for the influence of site conditions, namely...

Sizing and Control of a Hybrid Ship Propulsion System Using Multi-Objective Double-Layer Optimization

Ship hybridization has received some interests recently in order to achieve the emission target by 2050. However, designing and optimizing a hybrid propulsion system is a complicated problem. Sizing components and optimizing energy management control are coupled with each other. This paper applies a nested double-layer optimization...

Lifetime Analysis of IGBT Power Modules in Passively Cooled Tidal Turbine Converters

Thermal cycling is one of the major reasons for failure in power electronic converters. For submerged tidal turbine converters investigating this failure mode is critical in improving the reliability, and minimizing the cost of energy from tidal turbines. This paper considers a submerged tidal turbine converter which is passively cooled by...

Improving the Availability of Wind Turbine Generator Systems

Wind energy is becoming an important contributor in the world’s energy needs. An important trend in wind turbine design is the focus on reliability and increased availability of wind turbines. This is the aim of the study. It focusses its attention on the generator and power electronic converter due to the susceptibility of the generator system...

Calculation of PWM-induced rotor-can losses in flooded generators

Improving availability of tidal turbines has been identified as a key area to lower the levelized cost of energy from tides. One of the approaches suggested to achieve high reliability is to use a flooded permanent magnet (PM) generator. Flooded PM generators are designed to operate with a seawater filled stator-rotor gap in the generator. Using...

Lifetime comparison of power semiconductors in three-level converters for 10MW wind turbine systems

The power electronic converter, especially the power semiconductor, is a major contributor to the failure rates of the wind turbine drivetrain. As the temperature is a major driving factor behind the failure mechanisms of these power semiconductors the choice of topology and switching strategy can have a significant effect on the reliability...

A study on passive cooling in subsea power electronics

This paper proposes a simplified approach to model the thermal behavior of the insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) in a subsea power electronic converter. The models are based on empirical relations for natural convection in water, and IGBT datasheet values. The proposed model can be used in the design of subsea converters and in the...

Availability of wind turbine converters with extreme modularity

Modularity is promising from a view to increasing turbine availability through fault tolerant operation as well as reduced downtimes, especially for offshore wind turbines. This paper focuses on a quantitative analysis of large scale (or extreme) modularity in power electronic converters of wind turbine generator systems. It uses mathematical...

Comparing the Brushless DFIM to other Generator Systems for Wind Turbine Drive-Trains

In this paper, the brushless DFIM based wind turbine drive-train topology is compared to the DFIG based and PM generator based drive-train topologies, that are most commonly applied in modern wind turbines. The comparison will be based on a 3:2MW case study wind turbine. By using FE based multi-objective optimization, optimized generator designs...

A Review of Methods to Increase the Availability of Wind Turbine Generator Systems

Availability is an important factor to be considered when designing wind turbine generator systems. The quest for increasing availability is based on the following five design approaches - design for component reliability, active control for reliability, design for fault tolerance, prognostics, and design for maintainability. This paper reviews...