Abstract
Silicon semiconductor switches are suitable for pulse power applications. When utilized in these applications, the switch receives a significant amount of power (i.e., heat) that is to be dissipated, which can result in the degradation of the switch. In order to maintain the functionality of the switch, a thermal management system (TMS) needs to be developed to keep the switch temperature at no higher than 80 °C during operation. This threshold is set due to an increase in electrical resistivity of silicon with an increase in temperature. This study compares the viability of two TMS, a microchannel and a jet impingement single-phase liquid system, to facilitate the long term operation of the switch for pulse power applications through performing computational fluid dynamic modeling (CFD) in ANSYS Fluent. The results from this study show that by utilizing a jet impingement system as TMS, the temperature of switch is maintained below the desired operating temperature when compared to that of the microchannel design under identical operating parameters (i.e., mass flow rate, coolant type and inlet temperature). Moreover, a cross validation of the thermal performance of the proposed systems has been made to further validate the obtained results.
