Study on spray cooling characteristics of dry ice particles for IGBT in high-speed trains

Aiming at the high efficiency cooling problem of IGBT(Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) module of traction converter for high-speed Train, a method of spray cooling with natural dry ice particles was proposed. The heat sinks with pin-fin and straight-fin structure were designed, and the heat sinks with optimum structure size selected by simulation were developed, and the heat sinks were provided with visual shells, as well as single outlet, double outlet and four outlet of the three different ways of outlet. The gas-solid two-phase flow, heat and mass transfer characteristics of dry ice particles in the heat sinks were studied by means of simulation and experiment. By comparison, it is found that the flow and heat transfer in the pin-fin heat sink have a good cooperation, and it is most suitable for the IGBT module with spray cooling of dry ice particles, which can reduce the temperature of IGBT from 70 degree celsius to 55 degree celsius in 75 s, compared with the fin-free heat sink, the heat transfer performance is improved by 12 %, and the double-outlet pin-fin heat sink has the best effect, the temperature difference of the heat transfer substrate is 19.8 degree celsius, and the average temperature of the heat transfer substrate is only 22.5 degree celsius compared with that of the open type, which is 27.3 degree celsius lower. Double outlet dry ice particles spray pin-fin heat sink is an efficient heat sink, thermal resistance is only 0.066 K/W, it can meet the current practical application of high-speed train cooling needs, solve the problem of heat dissipation of IGBT module for high-speed train, it lays a foundation for the development of dry ice particles spray heat sink.