Potentials and Requirements of Silicon Carbide Hybrid Power Modules for Railway Onboard Auxiliary Power Supplies

Abstract:
The wide-band gap material silicon carbide shows promising capabilities for the use in medium power railway applications with challenging requirements. It provides system benefits through reduced losses, parameter-independent characteristics, high thermal conductivity and high maximal operation temperature. The implementation of these benefits in power modules in consideration of several parameters is the challenge of making SiC applicable for railway applications. This paper discuss requirements of 1200 V SiC power modules for usage in onboard auxiliary power supplies. In this connection the quality level of state-of-the-art IGBT modules has to be fulfilled. Furthermore results of an evaluation with first SiC hybrid power modules are presented.