Lightweight Heat Pipe Cooling Solution for High-Frequency Transformer in Power Electronics Building Block

Power electronics building blocks (PEBBs) provide a modular method of accomplishing power conversion for naval vessels; a key challenge in the development of PEBBs is thermal management. This study explores the feasibility of using heat pipes in conjunction with a chilled cold plate to maintain PEBB transformer core and coil temperatures below 100∘C and 155∘C, respectively. First, a standalone thermal model of the transformer was built in starccm+ and used to test various cooling solutions. The proposed design uses 16 copper–water heat pipes configured to provide alternative paths of heat flow for the regions of the transformer furthest from the cold plate. Shapal HiM Soft Machinable AlN ceramic provides high-voltage insulation. Electromagnetic simulations estimated the induced losses in the heat pipes as a result of high-frequency coil operations. The final configuration achieved a core maximum temperature of 99.7∘C, coil maximum of 93.2∘C, and switch maximum of 144.6∘C, all within their respective limits despite the induced losses in the copper-walled heat pipes. The usage of heat pipes adds only 0.29 kg to the weight-constrained PEBB. The thermal results show the effectiveness of heat pipes in the PEBB and invite further analysis and experimentation to validate the electromagnetic implications of the concept. These results also contribute to the general ongoing study of heat pipe usage near high-frequency electronics.