Importance of thermal radiation from heat sink in cooling of three phase PWM inverter kept inside an evacuated chamber

The paper describes a thermal analysis of a three-phase inverter operated under a Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) technique which used three sine waves displaced in 120° phase difference as reference signals. The IGBT unit is assumed to be placed with a heat sink inside an evacuated chamber and the entire heat has to be transferred by conduction and radiation. The main heat sources present here are the set of IGBTs and diodes which generates heat on a pulse basing on their switching frequencies. Melcosim (a well-known tool developed by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation) has been used to generate the power pulse from one set of IGBT and diode connected to a phase. A Scilab code is written to study the conduction and thermal radiation of heat sink and their combined effect on transient growth of the junction temperature of IGBT unit against complex switching pulses. The results mainly show that how thermal radiation from heat sink plays a crucial role in maintaining the junction temperature of IGBT within a threshold limit by adjusting various heat sink parameters. As the IGBT heat generation rate becomes higher, radiative heat transfer of the heat sink increases sharply which enhances overall cooling performance of the system.