A New Aging-Aware Multi-Objective Thermal Management Strategy for IGBT Modules in Wind Power Converters

Converters play a critical role in wind power generation systems, with their reliability directly impacting system stability and operational efficiency. To address the challenges posed by increased thermal load fluctuations due to solder layer aging in insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) modules in converters, this paper proposes an aging-aware multi-objective thermal management (AAMO-TM) strategy to enhance the performance of aging modules. An improved junction temperature estimation model is developed, incorporating coordinated control of switching frequency and gate drive resistance to account for the dynamic thermal behavior of IGBT modules during aging. Pareto and hierarchical optimization techniques are employed to resolve the multi-objective problem of excessive junction temperature suppression, junction temperature fluctuation smoothing, and power quality improvement. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed AAMO-TM strategy outperforms a competing strategy at temperature fluctuation by a large margin (up to 59.4%). Our proposed strategy significantly enhances the thermal stability of aging IGBT modules while effectively suppressing grid-connected current harmonics. This study provides valuable theoretical insights and practical guidance for achieving the stable operation of wind turbines and delivering high-quality power output.