Multi-objective design of liquid cooled power electronic modules for transient operation

A computationally efficient modeling framework for predicting and optimizing the thermal performance of liquid cooled power electronic modules has been developed to be used as a rapid scouting tool for preliminary layout designs. The framework is based on an integration of a compact multidimensional, transient thermal model with a genetic algorithm based multi-objective optimizer. By combining a simplified thermal impedance network model with the impulse response of multiple devices on a common substrate, an overall transient thermal assessment of a power electronic module can be performed. This methodology has been employed for analyzing power electronic modules that do not operate long enough to reach steady-state conditions. The modeling framework allows a designer to quickly identify potential optimal designs and perform detailed numerical simulations on them, rather than spend time searching for these optimal layouts through extensive computations.