Reliability of Capacitors for DC-Link Applications in Power Electronic Converters-An Overview

• Published in: IEEE transactions on industry applications Vol. 50; no. 5; pp. 3569 - 3578
• Main Authors: Wang, Huai, Blaabjerg, Frede
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-09-2014; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Capacitance; Capacitors; Integrated circuits; Reliability; Stress; Ceramic capacitors; electrolytic capacitors; film capacitors; power converters; reliability; dc link
• ISSN: 0093-9994; 1939-9367
• DOI: 10.1109/TIA.2014.2308357

DC-link capacitors are an important part in the majority of power electronic converters which contribute to cost, size and failure rate on a considerable scale. From capacitor users' viewpoint, this paper presents a review on the improvement of reliability of dc link in power electronic converters from two aspects: 1) reliability-oriented dc-link design solutions; 2) conditioning monitoring of dc-link capacitors during operation. Failure mechanisms, failure modes and lifetime models of capacitors suitable for the applications are also discussed as a basis to understand the physics-of-failure. This review serves to provide a clear picture of the state-of-the-art research in this area and to identify the corresponding challenges and future research directions for capacitors and their dc-link applications.