Thermal performance of insulated gate bipolar transistor module using microchannel cooling base plate

The insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) module cannot meet industrial requirements under high-power density due to the high junction temperature and non-uniform temperature distribution. To overcome these problems, two novel microchannel designs (i.e. longitudinal counter-flow microchannel and horizontal counterflow microchannel) were proposed for the base plate cooling of the IGBT module, in this study. A heat transfer model was developed to investigate the heat transfer performance, pressure drop, temperature distribution of a full-size IGBT module with the proposed microchannel cooling designs. The results showed that the horizontal counter-flow microchannel design had better heat transfer performance, lower pressure drop, more uniform temperature distribution and higher energy efficiency in comparison to the longitudinal counter-flow microchannel cooling design. To further improve the heat transfer performance, longitudinal vortex generators was applied in the horizontal counter-flow microchannel design. It was found that the Nusselt number of the horizontal counter-flow microchannel with longitudinal vortex generators reached 10.86, which increased by 61% compared with the basic horizontal counter-flow microchannel design.