Electrical and electronic components (e.g. microprocessors, IGBT's, power semiconductors etc.) are most often cooled by air-cooled heat sinks with extended surfaces, directly attached to the surface to be cooled. A fan or blower moves air across the heat sink fins, removing the heat generated by the component. With increasing power densities, miniaturization of components, and shrinking of packaging, it is sometimes not possible to adequately cool electrical and electronic components with heat sinks and forced air flows. When this occurs, other methods must be employed to remove heat from the components.
A particular cooling problem example is with high power drive stacks. High-power drive stacks are used in a wide variety of applications. Such applications include for example, driving a motor, regenerating energy from a windmill or other renewable power source back to a distribution line, braking systems for large inertia objects (e.g., large wheel), etc. A conventional high power drive stack is a monolithic unit that typically includes electronic controls, power components, and cooling components. The power components generally include an input rectifier, IGBT bridge module, and a dynamic brake switch. The power components are generally coupled to the cooling components, which may include a heat sink and/or a cooling fan. A variation in the monolithic design, discussed above, is to divide the high-power drive stack into several different units. In such case, the drive may be divided into three separate units (e.g., input rectifier unit, brake unit and inverter unit). The units may be connected together by cables and/or bus bars, and are mounted in separate enclosures. A further refinement to the above prior art systems is to provide a drive that is divided up into different units, with the drives consisting of two common electric connection points (e.g., DC+ and DC−). In addition, such units may also provide that these connection points align mechanically, which enables the units to be modular and connect together using two straight bus bars, when a plurality of drive units are connected together.
In addition to adequate cooling problems, there are a variety of other drawbacks associated with such prior art devices. For example, there are only two common electrical connection points. All other connections generally have to be made by hard wiring the connection directly to the device. Many such devices are not pluggable and/or removably insertable, which makes removing, repairing, and installing the device difficult and time consuming.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds