Page 14 - PEN Ebook May 2021

THERMAL MANAGEMENT
Thermal Management
Interfaces from Mars
Perseverance to EV
By Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio, Editor-in-Chief of Power Electronics News and EEWeb
Batteries can overheat when pushed to their lim-
its. The lack of space and sufficient ventilation
area in electric vehicles is directing the design
of thermal management towards new solutions,
so that the batteries do not overheat and cause
extreme damage to the entire system. Kulr Tech-
nology Group is developing, manufacturing, and
licensing carbon fiber thermal technologies for
batteries and other electronic devices to keep
them cool.
Lithium battery fire incidents involving hover-
boards, smartphones, and electric vehicles are
14 MAY 2021 | www.powerelectronicsnews.com
a serious public safety concern for electronics
and battery manufacturers, creating a surge in
demand for improved battery safety technologies
and thermal management solutions (figure 1).
In an interview with Power Electronics News, Mi-
chael Mo, Chief Executive Officer at Kulr Technology
Group, highlighted how the company’s carbon-fib-
er technology designed with NASA to regulate the
extreme temperatures of sensitive components in
space for the Persevarance mission, will be em-
ployed by Drako Motors for a new ultra high perfor-
mance electric supercar. With a 1,200-horsepower
Figure 1: Thermal Management Material and Device Market (Source: Market and
Markets Research))
architecture designed, Drako GTE is an EV platform
that highlights the difficulties of thermal manage- arise from the minimal contact areas that are
ment and thus the importance of new solutions
that can improve performance.
THERMAL MANAGEMENT
We're seeing changes in the world of power
electronics with the automotive industry moving
towards vehicle electrification and the advent of
5G communications technologies that will ac-
celerate the growth of cloud computing. These
applications require more power and thermal
management solutions or cooling technologies
for batteries and other powertrain systems.
When passing through the conductors and sem-
iconductors electrons produce a lot of heat
and negatively affect the final performance of
the circuit. In recent decades, the power den-
Thermal Management
sity in electronic devices has
increased significantly. The
tendency to reduce the size of
the devices has increased ther-
mal problems within electronic
circuits. Therefore, temperature
management in power devices
remains an extremely critical
factor.
Several interfaces between
high-power components gen-
erate heat and the heat sinks
themselves. Thermal management issues can
created between the two surfaces (interface) due
to micro-scale surface roughness. This reduc-
es heat conduction across the interface since
air voids have low thermal conductivity. Surface
irregularity is the main cause of thermal con-
tact resistance. "The goal of Kulr's solutions is to
increase the contact between the two surfaces
and thus decrease the thermal resistance of the
interface," said Michael Mo.
The temperature changes the reliability and
durability of the electrical and electronic compo-
nents. A device malfunction is very often caused
by a thermal problem. High temperatures not
only make the system work unstable but also
reduce the average life of the components, thus
leading to their deterioration.
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