he National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) advances the science and engineering of energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, and renewable power technologies and provides knowledge to integrate and optimize energy systems. Research areas include Renewable Power, Sustainable Transportation, Energy Efficiency, and Energy Systems Integration. As part of this mission, NREL has developed facilities to support the integration of energy systems. This includes facilities for high-performance computing, materials, power electronics, electric machines, transportation, power systems integration, and strategic energy analysis. NREL is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, with over 2,500 employees and over 40 years of research and innovation in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Accelerated drive-cycle platform for the combination of thermally induced stresses with humidity and vibration

Power electronics and electric machines play a critical role in controlling the flow of energy through sustainable energy systems for both stationary and mobile applications. Located within NREL's Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences, the Advanced Power Electronics and Electric Machines Group performs thermal, electrothermal, thermomechanical, and reliability research activities with an emphasis on power electronics and electric machines. NREL has developed significant analytical, numerical, and experimental thermal management experience and capabilities to provide rigorous performance measurements, technology demonstrations, reliability evaluations of innovative materials, surface enhancements, packages and modules, and heat exchanger design and development for electronics, power electronics, and electric machines. We employ these advancements to an array of energy efficiency, transportation, and renewable energy applications. As a leading laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy for electric drive thermal management, we support the integration of necessary cooling technologies to meet DOE's desire to develop robust and cost-effective traction drive power electronics and electric machines. Research focus areas include:

Thermal and Electrothermal Research Aspects in Power Electronics

• Research compact, power-dense wide-bandgap (WBG)-device-based power electronics
• Enable higher-temperature-rated devices, components, and materials
• Research advanced heat-transfer technologies
• Perform analysis and experiments for system-level thermal management

Advanced Packaging Designs and Reliability

• Improve reliability of new (high-temperature/WBG) technologies
• Develop predictive and remaining lifetime models
• Perform package parametric modeling

Electric Motor Thermal Management

• Enable higher voltages and frequencies
• Increase current density and power density
• Increase reliability
• Understand and evaluate material properties (thermal, mechanical, electrical) as a function of temperature
• Develop and evaluate advanced cooling strategies

For more information about Power Electronics and Electric Machines research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, visit https://www.nrel.gov/transportation/peem.html.

Provided by: Kevin Bennion and Sreekant Narumanchi,
Advanced Power Electronics and Electric Machines Group,
National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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