Title :
Reliability assessment of fault-tolerant Dc-Dc converters for photovoltaic applications
Author :
Dhople, Sairaj V. ; Davoudi, Ali ; Chapman, Patrick L. ; Domínguez-García, Alejandro D.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
Abstract :
A framework for integrating performance and reliability analysis of switch-mode, dc-dc power converters employed as front ends in photovoltaic energy processing applications is presented. The proposed approach acknowledges the influence of the converter´s steady-state operation on device failure rates. Markov reliability models are derived to assess reliability-oriented metrics of the system. The conceptual background is elucidated in the context of a topologically-redundant dc-dc converter, and the dependence of the Mean Time to Failure on design parameters is explored. The subtle affiliation between power-electronics design and system reliability is assessed through several case studies.
Keywords :
DC-DC power convertors; Markov processes; failure analysis; fault tolerance; photovoltaic power systems; reliability; switching convertors; Markov reliability models; device failure rates; fault-tolerant DC-DC converters; mean time to failure; photovoltaic energy processing applications; power-electronics design; reliability assessment; reliability-oriented metrics; steady-state operation; switch-mode converters; Markov reliability modeling; photovoltaic systems; power electronics; reliability;
Conference_Titel :
Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition, 2009. ECCE 2009. IEEE
Conference_Location :
San Jose, CA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2893-9
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2893-9
DOI :
10.1109/ECCE.2009.5316414
