Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters

This study presents a comparative thermal analysis of two power converter configurations. The analysis was carried out in MATLAB Simscape and ANSYS Steady State Thermal. The comparison focuses on traditional air-cooled power converter design that use a Thermal Interface Materials (TIM) versus an oil...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Gumbo, Keith Kudakwashe
Tipo de recurso: tesis de maestría
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/444563
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/444563
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Electric transformers -- Cooling
Electric vehicles
Electric power systems -- Cooling
Transformadors elèctrics -- Refrigeració
Vehicles elèctrics
Sistemes de distribució d'energia elèctrica -- Refrigeració
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica
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repository_id_str
spelling Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power convertersGumbo, Keith KudakwasheElectric transformers -- CoolingElectric vehiclesElectric power systems -- CoolingTransformadors elèctrics -- RefrigeracióVehicles elèctricsSistemes de distribució d'energia elèctrica -- RefrigeracióÀrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònicaThis study presents a comparative thermal analysis of two power converter configurations. The analysis was carried out in MATLAB Simscape and ANSYS Steady State Thermal. The comparison focuses on traditional air-cooled power converter design that use a Thermal Interface Materials (TIM) versus an oil-immersed configuration where TIMs is replace by dielectric oil. The focus is on the thermal management of the passive components (transformers) as they are the most difficult to cool with conventional methods and require the most complex thermal management strategies in the power converter under consideration used for high power density electronic applications. The key objective is to investigate how design choices affect the distribution of heat, particularly maximum temperatures across the transformer and heat dissipation pathways such as the thermal interface layer or the bottom oil layer. The focus of this study was on the transformers due to their complexity which make them ideal to build a base model for thermal management or other components. The study demonstrates that through surface optimization and fluid selection, it is possible to achieve minimal oil layer thickness and thermal conductance with reasonable thermal resistance and positions it as a viable alternative to thermal interface materials and thermal pads. The simulation results indicate that passive immersion cooling with oil leads to improved multi-directional heat transfer because of higher thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity of oil. Oil’s superior breakdown voltage also presents an additional advantage in preventing the risk of electrical arcing, which is a risk in the traditional cooling case where transformers are surrounded by air. The thermal resistance calculation also confirmed that the oil case had consistently lower Rth across all keys path, especially on the vertical sides while on the primary path (to the cold plate) its Rth was relatively similar in magnitude, signaling potential as a worthy solution to ensure temperature uniformity.OutgoingUniversitat Politècnica de CatalunyaOliet Casasayas, CarlesAbebe, Robert20252025-06-0120252025-10-24master thesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdccNAhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesisapplication/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/2117/444563reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPCinstname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)Inglésengopen accesshttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/4445632026-05-27T15:37:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters
title Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters
spellingShingle Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters
Gumbo, Keith Kudakwashe
Electric transformers -- Cooling
Electric vehicles
Electric power systems -- Cooling
Transformadors elèctrics -- Refrigeració
Vehicles elèctrics
Sistemes de distribució d'energia elèctrica -- Refrigeració
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica
title_short Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters
title_full Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters
title_fullStr Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters
title_full_unstemmed Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters
title_sort Passive immersion cooling as an alternative to thermal interface materials for thermal management of electric vehicle power converters
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Gumbo, Keith Kudakwashe
author Gumbo, Keith Kudakwashe
author_facet Gumbo, Keith Kudakwashe
author_role author
dc.contributor.none.fl_str_mv Oliet Casasayas, Carles
Abebe, Robert
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Electric transformers -- Cooling
Electric vehicles
Electric power systems -- Cooling
Transformadors elèctrics -- Refrigeració
Vehicles elèctrics
Sistemes de distribució d'energia elèctrica -- Refrigeració
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica
topic Electric transformers -- Cooling
Electric vehicles
Electric power systems -- Cooling
Transformadors elèctrics -- Refrigeració
Vehicles elèctrics
Sistemes de distribució d'energia elèctrica -- Refrigeració
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica
description This study presents a comparative thermal analysis of two power converter configurations. The analysis was carried out in MATLAB Simscape and ANSYS Steady State Thermal. The comparison focuses on traditional air-cooled power converter design that use a Thermal Interface Materials (TIM) versus an oil-immersed configuration where TIMs is replace by dielectric oil. The focus is on the thermal management of the passive components (transformers) as they are the most difficult to cool with conventional methods and require the most complex thermal management strategies in the power converter under consideration used for high power density electronic applications. The key objective is to investigate how design choices affect the distribution of heat, particularly maximum temperatures across the transformer and heat dissipation pathways such as the thermal interface layer or the bottom oil layer. The focus of this study was on the transformers due to their complexity which make them ideal to build a base model for thermal management or other components. The study demonstrates that through surface optimization and fluid selection, it is possible to achieve minimal oil layer thickness and thermal conductance with reasonable thermal resistance and positions it as a viable alternative to thermal interface materials and thermal pads. The simulation results indicate that passive immersion cooling with oil leads to improved multi-directional heat transfer because of higher thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity of oil. Oil’s superior breakdown voltage also presents an additional advantage in preventing the risk of electrical arcing, which is a risk in the traditional cooling case where transformers are surrounded by air. The thermal resistance calculation also confirmed that the oil case had consistently lower Rth across all keys path, especially on the vertical sides while on the primary path (to the cold plate) its Rth was relatively similar in magnitude, signaling potential as a worthy solution to ensure temperature uniformity.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
2025-06-01
2025
2025-10-24
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv master thesis
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdcc
NA
http://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43
dc.type.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis
format masterThesis
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://hdl.handle.net/2117/444563
url https://hdl.handle.net/2117/444563
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
eng
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
language eng
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
dc.rights.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
instname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
instname_str Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
reponame_str UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
collection UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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score 15.811543

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