A Scalable Approach for Transient Thermal Modeling of Automotive Power Electronics

Efficient thermal management is critical for the reliability and performance of power electronics systems in automotive applications. This work presents a computationally efficient modeling approach for transient thermal simulation of power electronic systems, with a focus on inverter modules using multiple MOSFETs mounted on a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA). A case study of an inverter module comprising six MOSFETs arranged as high-side and low-side pairs for a three phases system mounted on a PCBA, attached to a heat sink is considered. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations in Ansys^® Icepak^™ are performed considering different heat transfer mechanisms, including natural convection, forced convection at constant velocity, and forced convection with varying flow velocity. A transient thermal model is developed using the lumped parameter linear superposition (LPLSP) method, a hybrid approach that combines lumped parameter modeling with the principle of linear superposition to capture transient thermal behavior efficiently. Temperatures of the components from the simulations are compared with temperatures from the LPLSP model and temperatures from a linear time invariant (LTI)–based reduced-order model (ROM) developed for this system. It is observed that the LPLSP model is able to model a wide range of use cases very accurately with error of less than 5%. This method enables rapid thermal performance evaluation of power electronics systems that have very fast transients in component-level power dissipation and variations in ambient conditions, making it particularly well-suited for early stage design iterations and long-duration mission profile simulations. The approach offers a practical path to reducing development cycles for automotive power electronics design.