Thermal Analysis of Cold Plate for Motor Controller Based on Fluent

Electronics cooling research has been largely focused on high heat flux removal from computer chips in the recent years. However, the equally important field of high-power electronic devices has been experiencing a major paradigm shift from air cooling to liquid cooling over the last decade. For example, multiple insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) used in a power drive for motor used in electric vehicle. Motor drive system plays an important impact on electric vehicle’ performance, so thermal design should be considered in the early stages during the motor controller design and layout of the devices. In this paper, a new type of water-cooled cold plate for motor controller was designed, and its cooling ability was analyzed by using different material base on Fluent. The results provide reference on the optimization design of cold plate.