Fast Lifespan Evaluation of IGBT Module of Direct Drive Wind Turbine Converter

Power converter is among the core components of the direct-drive wind turbines. The lifespan of semiconductor modules is essential for reliability evaluation of the power converter, but it is substantially influenced by output power fluctuation and intermittency of the turbine. This paper proposes a fast method for lifespan evaluation of semiconductor modules under various operation conditions. This method makes full use of wind speed and temperature information throughout the year, and considers the impact of low-frequency, fundamental-frequency, and ambient temperature fluctuations on the lifespan of the semiconductor module. By utilizing equivalent average model instead of the switching model for thermal effect calculation, the computation burden is significantly reduced, and satisfying calculation speed is guaranteed. A 1.2 MW wind turbine is utilized as a benchmark for lifespan evaluation, and the effectiveness of this method is validated.