A Methodology to Determine the Effect of a Novel Modulation in the Reliability of an Automotive DC-Link Capacitor

Abstract

Switched Reluctance Machines (SRM) are considered promising rare-earth free candidates for the next generation electrified vehicles. One of the main drawback of this technology is the need of a large DC-link capacitor to balance the energy transferred back and forth between the DC source and the SRM. There are interesting novel modulations to reduce the current of the DC bus, focused on the capacitor size and cost reduction but leaving aside the thermal analysis and lifetime improvements. Carrying out the required dynamic multi-physics simulations for that purpose becomes highly time consuming and complex, especially when standardized or real driving conditions are needed to be taken into account. This article proposes a simulation methodology, simple to implement and with a relatively low computational cost, to estimate the lifetime of an automotive DC-link capacitor, with the current load it delivers as the starting point. The presented methodology has also been used to validate a novel SRM modulation technique and to compare it, in terms of reliability, with the conventional torque sharing function.