Lead academic: Dr Paul Evans, University of Nottingham
Universities: Bristol, Greenwich and Nottingham
Research Highlights: The Virtual Prototyping Theme is working to develop the tools that power electronic system designers need to be able to design optimal wide band-gap systems, right-first-time, on a computer using virtual prototyping techniques.
- Development of fast thermo-mechanical simulation capability that can predict
degradation in interface such as wirebonds - Production of an electrical-electromagnetic simulation capability that can predict losses due to current and magnetic flux in power converters
- Working towards a Fast Computational Fluid Dynamics implementation for automatic estimation of thermal boundary conditions at fluid interfaces
- Validation and integration into the Centre’s design tool is now underway and in the second phase of the project, the efficiency of these simulation techniques is to be improved.
Magnetic field simulation of solenoid
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
This research project will develop the tools that power electronic system designers need to be able to design optimal WBG systems, right-first-time, on a computer using Virtual Prototyping. This will allow faster design times, as fewer physical prototypes must be built, and it will allow engineers with Silicon system experience to quickly develop high performance WBG systems.
We will do this by developing mathematical techniques that can be applied to predict how a potential system will behave in the electromagnetic, thermal, mechanical, reliability and semi-conductor domains. These techniques will then be combined into a proof-of-concept design tool that will be demonstrated on real wide-bandgap systems developed at the partner institutions, and through parallel work with the other themes.