Thermal management of electronic and electrical devices in automobile environment

The Japanese industry has developed power electronics for railway trains, and now works to extend its experience to automobiles. The former part of the paper outlines the thermal issues pertinent to automobile applications as compared to railway applications. The discussion is developed for IGBT power modules and batteries. The latter part of the paper reviews the tools of thermal design analysis. A challenge to thermal design analysts is how to devise appropriate models of complex structures and thermal environment inside vehicles.