LABORATORY SET-UP FOR INVESTIGATION THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POWER TRANSISTORS’ KEYS WHICH WORKS AS A PART OF SEMICONDUCTOR ENERGY TRANSFORMERS

Modern system of adjustable electric drive are characterized by using in their construction semiconductor energy transformers based on full-controlled power keys, because their usage opens wide range of possibilities for creating high-efficient energy- and resource-saving devices. The process of designing the semiconductor energy transformer, or the process of improving existent devices, determines well-grounded selection of their constituent elements and circuit decisions. Herewith, special attention should be paid to accepted power losses in power keys and highly efficient meth-ods for their cooling. Carried-out analysis of the power loss components in power keys has showed, that while designing the converters it is possible to assure minimum losses because of the ensuring such switching speeds, which would ensure optimal trajectory of the key turning-offs and turning-ons. Energy losses are also highly dependent on the pas-sive safety system, which decreases possibility of turning transistor key to one of the breakdown modes. As the loss energy in the power transistors is extracted from semiconductor crystal and dispersed as a heat, important question is selection of the heat sink method. In this work it was presented the laboratory set-up, which allows one to conduct the number of experimental researches, namely: evaluation of the influence of additional fields used for formation the turning-on and turning-off trajectory of the power key on the dynamic energy losses; evaluation of the influence of the transistor passive safety system on dynamic energy losses; investigation of transistors’ surge-protection methods effectiveness; investigation of the effectiveness of most popular t cooling systems used for ransistor keys. The developed laboratory complex allows students to conduct experimental evaluation the operating modes of the power IGBT’s which works as a part of semiconductor energy transformers.