A Mission-Profile-Based Tool for the Reliability Evaluation of Power Semiconductor Devices in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Due to increasing environmental concerns, hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are gaining more and more attention. However, the reliability aspect performance of the power electronic system can be a limiting factor, and can increase the overall life-cycle cost of the vehicle if not properly designed. Consequently, in order to fulfil the stringent reliability demands, and cost constraints of the automotive sector, special emphasis is placed during early development stages on evaluating the reliability of power converters. Thus, the need for realistic and fast reliability analysis of power semiconductor devices arises. As a result, a mission-profile-based reliability assessment tool platform for power electronic systems is proposed in this paper. The reliability evaluation procedure and the proposed tool are demonstrated on a HEV application study-case.