Two-Phase Cooling for High Packaging Density Planar Inverter: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-15-00592

The project objective was to utilize two-phase heat transfer to enable compact and power-dense inverters. The high heat transfer capacity and near isothermal characteristics of two-phase cooling can enable higher power densities, reducing the size and cost of the power electronics system. This project focused on developing efficient, passive (no pump or compressor) two-phase cooling strategies that consist of an air-cooled condenser and evaporator. This report describes the modeling work conducted to design the evaporator and air-cooled condenser for a prototype inverter development work underway in the John Deere. Prototypes of the final evaporator and condenser designs were then fabricated via 3D printing for testing. Experiments on the evaporator confirmed that this component can meet the heat load and junction temperatures requirements for Si IGBT (insulated-gate bipolar transistor) inverter. Experiments with the air-cooled condenser were not possible due to leaks through the condenser walls.