Enhancing Heat Dissipation of Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor by Graphene Reinforced Paraffin Thermal Interface Material

The failure proportion of insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) owing to overheating is very high during operation; especially, it endures large transient currents when turned on. Therefore, the efficient thermal management of IGBT power devices is very important to the safety and reliability of the IGBT. Here, a finite element analysis is carried out to investigate the influence of a thermal interface material with paraffin as the phase change material and graphene as reinforced thermal conductive filler on the temperature and thermal resistance of IGBT modules. The simulation results show that the existence of paraffin phase change material can slow down the heating rate and decrease the interfacial thermal resistance of the IGBT module. At the optimal thickness of paraffin, [Formula: see text], the temperature of IGBT module is dropped by 13°C. The temperature of IGBT module is lowest for 5% wt mass fraction of graphene, and decreases by 6°C compared to that of 0% wt mass fraction of graphene. The composite thermal interface material can effectively enhance the heat dissipation of IGBT modules compared with commercial silicone grease. All the results demonstrate that the composite thermal interface material is very useful in heat dissipation practical applications for IGBT modules.