Aging Condition Monitoring for Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitor in Traction Rectifiers

The aluminum electrolytic capacitor (AEC) is one of the important components in traction systems, but it is prone to failure. In order to improve the reliability of the system, it is extremely essential to monitor the condition of the AEC. In this paper, an aging condition monitoring method based on magnitude-frequency response of the AEC is proposed. The capacitance value and the equivalent series resistance (ESR) value are selected to monitor the aging condition of the AEC, which can make the method highly reliable. The method only utilizes the existing components of the system, it does not require additional sensors and can be extended to other converter applications. Finally, a simulation experiment platform of the traction rectifier is constructed, and the robustness and effectiveness of the method are proved by the simulation results.