Development of a 1 kW, 200°C Mapham inverter utilizing high temperature components

Electronic systems and components often exposed to high temperature environment in space-based applications, nuclear power facilities, and geothermal energy extraction fields. A key requirement for these systems is, therefore, to withstand the high temperature exposure while maintaining efficient and reliable operation. Efforts were taken to design and develop a high temperature power inverter capable of 200°C operation. In this work, a 1 kW, 20 kHz Mapham inverter was designed and built utilizing components developed for high temperature operation. These components, which included capacitors, inductors, transformers, were developed and demonstrated at 200°C. The inverter system was evaluated as a function of temperature at different load levels. The inverter system, excluding its input, control and logic circuitries, was characterized at temperatures from ambient to 200°C at 0%, 50%, and 100% resistive loading. With an applied input voltage of 75 VDC, the inverter produced an output of 250 VAC. The results obtained, which have indicated good operational characteristics of the inverter up to 200°C, are presented and discussed