A Critique Paper on 2S19 ECE 525a - Industrial Electronics

Danah Mae G. Narsolis

University of Southeastern Philippines, Davao City

Title: Practical Design Considerations of Power Electronics Hybrid and Fuel Cell Vehicles
Author: Jin Wang
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ohio State University, USA
Link: https://bit.ly/2WGVwRm

Past Studies. The human physical transportation system can be traced back a hundred years ago. An inexorable increase in the
world’s population for a hundred of years entails a dramatic need for personal vehicles, specifically, in the past decades. According to
C.C Chan on his paper The State of the Art of Electric, Hybrid, and Fuel Cell Vehicles, the strict regulations of agencies in both
public and private sectors on environmental protection, fuel efficiency, and energy sources limitations led to conduct research studies
to develop new concepts and designs. The rise of Hybrid Electric Vehicle or also known as HEV and Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV) propelled
a giant leap in the automotive and engineering industry. HEVs and FCVs aided to overcome the drawbacks of conventional
automobiles.
HEV make use of electric powertrain for better performance and better fuel economy. The HEV increases the efficiency of the vehicle
and lowers carbon dioxide emission. It is composed of both internal combustion engine(ICE) and an electric motor driving the wheels
and batteries that store and distributes the energy. Thus, the name hybrid. HEV gives birth to regenerative braking. It’s like a house of
technology all working in harmony. Fuel Cell Vehicles(FCV) is an electrochemical engine where you can directly convert energy into
electricity. It utilizes hydrogen as fuel combined with oxygen from air and directly connects in an electrochemical cell into electricity.
There are no carbon emissions like gasoline on powered vehicles as a result. It revolutionizes an entire energy system and changes
the century-old paradigm. Today two of the public worldwide car organizations have hybrid electric cars available to be purchased in
many corners of the world with aggregate deals presently surpassing 120k. Hybridized powertrains are not equipped with ac drives
because of power electronics that gives control simplicity and high durability. However, because of the constraints of these ac drives,
it is still inadequate to meet full drive system performance requirements of an automotive propulsion system. Miller believed on his
paper Power Electronics in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Applications that power electronics provide the best solution to wide CPSR
and overall performance of hybrid’s ac drives.
Present Studies. The power electronics industry on FCVs and ECVS focused more on the traction drive circuit. In FCV, there is a
necessity to boost inverter before the traction inverters due to its wide voltage output range and the electric motor's high power
requirement. For HEVs, the boost converter is also suggested to the traction drive to improve the system efficiency through increasing
the inverter’s dc bus voltage.
Interleaved structure and a non-interleaved structure are the choices for boost converters. The former is believed to have a quality
performance when it comes to current ripple. Dimension, efficiency, cost, acoustic noise, reliability, weight, and EMI performance are
among the factors that must be put into consideration when selecting a structure for the circuit. These factors give reasons not to use
interleaved design since (1) there is no significant saving on silicon die area (2) no considerable size or cost reduction in magnetic
component (3) more complex control interface, bus bar structure and gate drive circuits which implies higher cost (4) output capacitance
could not be reduced.
The paper presented active and passive component designs to HEV and FCV specifically on (a)Power Module, (b)Power Capacitor
and (c)Power Inductor.
The Power Module. Thermal cycling is recognized as a noted cause of common failures in the design of power modules. The thermal
expansion coefficients, when mismatched, might cause the substrate layer and base plate detach from one another. T, the researcher
presented a figure of a power module where the substrate is soldered to the base plate to address the issue. The combination of these
two parts has a high impact on cost and reliability. The researcher suggested Silicon Nitride (Si3N4) for substrate and Aluminum Silicon
Carbide (AlSiC) for the base plate as the best combination regardless of the cost. AlN and Cu, Al2O3 and Cu were also the
combinations suggested having the latter as the most common combination used in industrial applications.
Cooling system plays a significant role in the operation condition of IGBT die. The researcher suggested pin-fin heatsink design and
double side cooling as cooling strategies to improve thermal dissipation. Double-sided cooling has been a significant trend as a new
technique in packaging IGBT modules.
Power Capacitor. In the power electronics, power film capacitors have long gone out taken the electrolytic capacitors. It is used as dc
link capacitors in HEV traction drives. Film capacitors are capable of better current handling, better overvoltage, and lower ESR.
Future Studies. The future of Hybrid and Fuel Cell Vehicles in power electronics design yearns to adopt Silicon Carbide or Gallium
Nitride semiconductors as components for reliable functioning in a high-temperature environment. It also anticipates to reduce the size
of the silicon die through double side cooling for switching devices, espouse Z-source inverter and matrix inverter as its traction drive
circuits and utilizes thermoelectric technology to realize further energy saving and power electronics circuit optimization. More efforts
are also being exerted to increase the worldwide energy conversion by 20% through Thermoelectric Generation.

Critique
Relevance and Timeliness Technical Content Novelty and Originality Quality of Presentation

4/5 4/5 4/5 3/5

Relevance and Timeliness. The research paper is both relevant and timely since the world is having its constant battle on several issues like
global warming, air pollution, and more alarming environmental concerns — the study aided in addressing such issues without sacrificing the system
efficiency of the physical vehicle.

Technical Content. The research paper catered complete solutions and analytical designs and models that revolutionize an entire energy system.

Novelty and Originality. The paper has its significant original work and is true to novel results.
Quality of Presentation. The paper was a little ambiguous on the terms used since some items were presented on acronyms. However, it is well
explicitly organized on its references.

Strengths: The paper tackled a thermal design strategy for inverter or converter and pointed out the reliability of a semiconductor device at a
high temperature. The researcher was able to give different circuit proposals for electronic power blocks in HEVs and FCVs like a soft-switching
strategy for the traditional boost converter and a double feed induction motor.

Weaknesses: The paper fails to address cost reduction in fuel cell stack and durability.

Overall Recommendation. 8/10