Industrial/Ph.D. Course in Capacitors in Power Electronics Applications

Description of the course

Capacitors are one of the key components in typical power electronic systems in terms of cost, volume, and reliability. Power electronics applications are consuming unprecedented quantities of electrolytic capacitors, film capacitors, and ceramic capacitors.

This industrial/PhD course will discuss the sizing, modeling, and reliability analysis of capacitors from an application perspective, focusing on both classical and emerging power electronics applications. It is the latest research outcome of several PhD projects and industrial collaboration activities. It was firstly introduced in 2017 as one of the very first courses in its kind in the world.

The 2018 version of the course will cover the following aspects:

■ Basics of capacitors and its functions in power electronic converters

■ Emerging capacitor technologies and latest developments

■ Capacitor sizing criteria in power electronics by considering steady-state performance, transient and stability performance under both normal and abnormal operations

■ Reliability of electrolytic capacitors, film capacitors, and ceramic capacitors

■ Mission profiled based electro-thermal-lifetime modeling of capacitors

■ Condition monitoring and protection of capacitors in power electronics applications

■ Capacitor minimization techniques in power electronic systems

■ Case studies in DC-DC converters, Modular Multilevel Converters (MMC), photovoltaic inverters, and ultra-low inductive capacitor bank design.

30% of the time of the course will be hands-on exercises and lab experiments.