Electrolytic capacitor failure prediction of LC filter for switching-mode power converters

The objective of this paper is to propose a new method to detect the rise of equivalent series resistor (ESR) in order to realize the on-line failure prediction of the electrolytic capacitor for LC filter of switching-mode power converter. Characteristics of electrolytic capacitors are introduced in this paper. Different experimental measurements are conducted and shown to illustrate the properties of electrolytic capacitors. The proposed on-line failure prediction method has the merits of low cost and circuit simplicity. Hardware experimental results are shown to verify the performance of the proposed method.