SUMMARY

The technological advances, encouraging government policies, as well as the global trend towards electrification are driving a revolutionary expansion in the electric vehicles’ market. Power electronics/devices are a key building block of the traction power inverter systems. The adoption rate of SiC power electronics is increasing due to its superior performance over Si devices, since they have higher efficiency, can handle higher power, withstand higher operating temperatures, and are more compact. However, the thermal management of these high-power density devices is challenging, especially with the trend towards more compact systems. In this work, the limits of single-phase cooling techniques are explored for an automotive SiC power module package. Reliability and manufacturability considerations of automotive applications are simultaneously considered. Jet Impingement on textured surfaces that are attached to or manufactured as an integrated part of direct bonded copper (DBC) substrate is numerically investigated for water-ethylene glycol mixtures. Pin fin covered surfaces showed better thermal performance compared to folded fins. An elliptic pin-fin heat sink was chosen and optimized for the jet impingement flow configuration. Selected optimal design candidates were experimentally tested to validate the numerical simulations.